Monday Morning Poha

The breakfast born between work calls, wake up calls and one very wrong tadka

Monday mornings in our home are rarely gentle. They arrive loudly with alarm clocks, half-packed school bags, unanswered work messages and me attempting, against all odds, to remain organised through it all. That particular morning, I had confidently planned a hot breakfast of poha. Simple, healthy, dependable poha.

The poha was washed and soaking while I ran upstairs for the first of many wake-up calls. By the time I returned downstairs, my brain had already split itself into several tabs. A work call came through just as I reached for the tadka. Then the doorbell rang. Somewhere between answering one thing and remembering another, my hand reached not for the mustard seeds, but for sesame seeds instead.

I froze.

There are moments in cooking where you know you have crossed a line from recipe into improvisation. This was one of them.

Still, there was no time to start again. I added green chillies, a pinch of asafoetida and carried on cautiously, convinced I had ruined breakfast. But something unexpected happened. The sesame seeds turned warm and nutty against the softness of the poha. A squeeze of lemon at the end brought everything together beautifully.

What began as distraction became tradition.

Now, every once in a while, I deliberately make “Monday Morning Poha” — proof that sometimes the best family recipes are not inherited carefully, but stumbled upon accidentally between chaos, phone calls and the school run.