“Give us our daily bread...” is a prayer I used to recite a number of times every day until I gave up religion in the mid-1980s. It was when I gave up reciting the prayer that it became meaningful for me in any way. Until then I just had to go the dining room at the stroke of the bell and my daily bread would be waiting having taken various avatars like idli or cooked rice or the pan-Indian chapatti with their necessary and delicious accompaniments. When I took up my first teaching job in Shillong where I stayed all alone in a rented house made of tin and wood, the only cooking I knew was to boil things like rice, vegetables and eggs. I survived pretty well on the fat-free diet and slimmed down rapidly without spending a single paisa in any calorie-burning centre or on any treadmill. The daily bread for breakfast came from the nearest baker who eventually advised me to cut down on bread and extend the boiled diet to breakfast too. “A little bit of rice in the morning is ten t
Cerebrate and Celebrate