New Delhi, April 9 -- In Varanasi, as in some other parts of northern India, breakfast, or a morning meal, is called kaleva, derived from the older Sanskrit word kalyavarta. That the idea of a light morning meal is well entrenched in the culinary cultures in these parts is confirmed by the region's time-honoured colloquialisms, proverbs, and idioms. An old expression declares: naan bahu, nun kaleva. For a petite daughter-in-law, mere salt can be breakfast. Numerous devotional songs from the region, composed around the dark-skinned Lord Krishna, describe in detail the morning rituals of waking him up and feeding him his breakfast. These songs are collectively called kaleo or kaleva.

In one such song, Sur Das, the sixteenth-century poet-sa...