So this morning I woke up at 5.45 as usual, made chai and was wondering what to rustle up for breakfast for the family since it was my turn cooking.

As usual, I went up to the terrace and started pacing around. The Koel came calling at 6.15 and cooed some ideas. A couple of chatty parrots squabbled about their day’s plans as they flew by, while a tiny, deep-blueish sunbird hovered around the railing, waiting to see if I would go away and let her set for a while. Eventually, the sunbird decided to set down on the railing and contemplate since I was pacing around minding my own business.

We live in Pune city in the state of Maharashtra in India. We reside in a suburb called Baner. Till even a decade ago, Baner was a rural, agrarian society. In the past 5 years, it’s been on a development roadmap as an urban suburb and in the past two years it’s moved up rapidly onto a cosmopolitan hub roadmap.

There’s a lot of greenery in Baner as also a few fields growing vegetables. It’s expected that you’ll find a Mango, Neem or Papaya tree at regular intervals apart from the Gulmohar and even an odd Cherry Blossom.

And so it isn’t unusual that the birds have stayed. And no, I am not listening to and talking to the birds because of the current coronavirus situation: This is my regular morning routine most days. Though I admit that it is much easier to listen to the birds without the blaring of horns from the incessant traffic of vehicles. Our regular visitors include sparrows, bulbuls, sunbirds, mynas, koels, parrots, pigeons, kites, ravens, crows, among others. They start yapping just before dawn and head out of their trees around 6.30-7. Then they return just before dusk, flying in from all directions and again, they rest a few minutes on the railings, exchanging notes.

Coming to think of it, their day sounds pretty much like mine.

So what did I cook finally? Well, I usually cook with what I have. And what I had today was Mushrooms. I love mushrooms. And in the current lockdown situation with no going out and two-week delivery schedules, these are hard to come by, so I had been holding on to these two boxes of fresh mushrooms I got last week and I now had 4 few left. That’s right 4 mushrooms. Soup, stir fry, mixed vegetables, buttered sauté all done.

So I figured I had use the mushrooms for a breakfast and went looking in the refrigerator and the first thing I saw were eggs. So the decision made itself and after slicing up a spicy bhavnagari chilly (the long Jalapeno type), a tomato, and grating some cheese, those 4 mushrooms made 3 very fluffy and rustic omelettes- and such omelettes are a wholesome meal by itself.

Good Morning World. Some times when you have 4 mushrooms, you can make an omelette without any philosophical twists.