uess what ate me for a full year after I moved to Mumbai?

 Eating.

It didn't matter so much when I lived off relatives for the first three months. Fresh bedsheets, washed and ironed clothes. And here's the best part: at least four full meals.

For breakfast, apart from steaming idlis and crisp dosas, there was toast and eggs, sunny side up. At the office, I grabbed lunch, followed by an evening munch to kill the five o'clock pangs. However late I crawled back home, there was always dinner to be microwave-warmed and eaten. Mmm... nothing like falling asleep on a full stomach.

Except, for that matter, an empty one.

Three months later, out on my own in an economy-class bachelor pad with another equally, perhaps competitively, clueless bachelor and a kitchen equipped with no more than an electric kettle, I was confronted with a life-threatening quandary: what do I eat?

In a city that gives you little love and even less fresh air, you have to eat. After a long struggle, I figured good meals don't come with a huge price tag. My been-there-done-that friends helped with a list of quick-fix meals I could dish up under Rs 50. After three years of scouring supermarket shelves, here is a success story.

Good mornings, minus the cooking

Got milk? If you have a fridge, breakfast arrives in one-litre tetra-packs. For flavouring, my colleague introduced me to Hershey's syrups -- chocolate and strawberry are my favourites. But if you hate milk or suffer from lactose intolerance, count yourself out. 

Fruit. Bananas are healthy, wholesome and promise smooth morning-afters. For variety, alternate with apples, pears and papaya. Very healthy, and your mother will approve. 

It's oval, white and came before the chicken

If weekdays presented the breakfast conundrum, weekends were sheer heartburn. Eating out was fine, but a healthy appetite and a lean wallet aren't exactly best pals. Too much eating out and soon 'lean' had nothing to do with my waistline.

One day, my roomie brought home a hot plate. And I brought home a dozen eggs. All week we feasted on them -- fried and scrambled -- and experimented with omelettes of varying carbon concentration.

But eggs -- despite Munnabhai and the peppy roz khao ande ads -- and the Mumbai heat can conspire against your innards with unrestrained violence. And soon your nether cheeks may resemble your facial ones at pubescence.

Breakfast no-nos

Coffee on an empty stomach can turn your stomach into a chemistry lab. Tea for breakfast is low octane fuel. Besides bloating your bladder, it takes you just as far as the front door.

After three days, bread with butter or cheese or jam or honey tastes like chewable parchment, even if you pick out the mysterious greenish growths on the edges.

Good Day biscuits are, well, not. Neither, for that matter, are any biscuits. They dry up your mouth and make you guzzle water all day.

I also discovered, to my great alarm, that crunchy kurkures were taboo, unless I wanted to be Bhopal, 1984 on legs.

Not a morning person?

I began to skip breakfast and eat lunch at the office, though by that time my belly would be belching acid. A friend advised me to boil potatoes and eat them with salt and pepper. I tried it for breakfast. All day I felt like a vodka distillery threatened by labour unrest.

Get hold of a dabbawallah, my aunt told me. Neat idea. The food was hot and fresh but somehow it didn't stick with my wayward schedule. Out went the dabba. But I'd still recommend it highly.

When all else fails

Maggi Noodles! They make fast friends with boiling water. If you want to be extra creative, mix in a little hot-sweet ketchup and stir on low heat. The results can be pleasantly surprising.

Supermarket surfing, I chanced upon frozen parathas manufactured in Pune. There were all kinds -- plain, aloo, gobi, the layered Kerala variety and yum, chicken and mutton, too. All you had to do was freeze them, and when your stomach rumbled, heat 'em and eat 'em. They kept me alive for months.

A Zen master once said something to the effect that the more you have, the more you want. Soon, I wasn't satisfied with just parathas. I craved curries but I didn't have the patience or skill to cook.

Then I discovered a range of pre-cooked, foil-wrapped foods -- everything from Vegetable Korma, Rajma, Chhole Masala, Palak Paneer and Dal Makhani. You only had to immerse the aluminium pouch in boiling water, cut the sides and pour into a serving bowl. Or microwave the contents.

If you are familiar with Annapurna wheat flour, look out for their heat-and-eat phulkas. Pre-cooked and somewhat perishable -- they expire in about three days -- they come in packs of five. Just warm them on a hot plate until they puff up. Eat with dal or curries.

If you are a South Indian and don't take lightly to taunts of Madrasi, prove your point with that most envied of South Indian breads -- the dosa. Try fresh, wet idli-dosa batter. You will need a non-stick tawa, a dab of ghee and half an onion. Rub the onion on the hot tawa after each dosa to ensure the next one doesn't stick. It may take you a while to get the perfect circle, but with patience and practice you can be assured of a tasty and inexpensive meal. Enjoy the dosas with coconut chutney or MTR chutney powder.

And now...

I have come a long way since those bachelor days, though the bachelor status hasn't quite changed. But my repertoire includes at least two kinds of dosas, three kinds of upma, the quintessential dal-chawal, stir-fried baby potatoes and a lean, mean prawn curry.

I gloated until I presented my credentials to my colleagues.

Now they are demanding a sit-down dinner, all cooked by yours truly.

Wish I had eaten my words instead.

Share with us your experiences of battling the food problem when you lived alone. Don't forget to include your age and where you are from. Also, do you have quick-fix recipes for live-alones? Let us know.

Illustrations: Uttam Ghosh