Birds including chicken, reptiles, fishes, insects and other multifarious living beings lay eggs. Like most other mammals, human beings do not lay them. The egg of the ostrich bird is the largest in the world. It is about 15 cms long, 13 cms broad and weighs around one and half kilo. Ostrich is a large African bird with long neck and long legs that runs fast but cannot fly. Contrary to this, is humming bird, a small American bird able to hover by beating its wings extremely fast. Its egg is very small weighing less than a gram. People regard this tiny bird to be a sign of good omen. In waters whale shark lays bigger eggs while gold fish lays very small ones.
In Konkani an egg is called ‘tanti’ or ‘kovot’. But in most other Indian languages this oval shaped edible thing is called ‘anda’. There is one story in Hindi language entitled ‘Soneka anda’ meaning golden egg. The poor farmer in the above story buys a hen from the market and rears it. Because of his good fortune every morning this miraculous hen lays a golden egg thereby making our farmer richer day by day. But one day farmer’s greedy wife says to her husband, “Look, our hen lays only one golden egg per day. If we take out all the eggs from inside its stomach at one time then we would be richer than the King and the Queen”! The farmer was delighted by listening his wife’s words. On the very same night of that day, the couple brings a knife and cuts the stomach of the hen that lays golden eggs. But they do not find any golden egg inside it. And the hen dies. The husband and the wife repent profusely for their deed as they lose a golden egg each day because of their greed.
The story is over. But it’s moral is everlasting. Today also we compare any profession or firm that gives regular income to a hen giving golden eggs. Many living beings lay eggs. But chicken eggs are the most common type of eggs that we eat. They are fairly mild as far as taste goes and they have many vitamins and nutrients. In accordance with National family health survey, in India one person eats 91 eggs per year. The global average of egg eating is 161 eggs per person per annum. In the United Stated, this average is 250 eggs. The people of Japan eat the maximum number of eggs per person per year. There, one person on an average eats 320 eggs during a year.
On consumption of eggs, the National Eggs Co-ordination committee recommends ‘egg a day’ policy in line with ‘an apple a day’ for keeping medicines away! Four former captains of Indian Cricket Team viz Sunil Gawaskar, Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid admit unanimously that on egg is ‘tough and Shangu’. Furthermore they state that the egg alone is the real Captain and advice people thus: “Sunday ho ya Monday, roz khao ande”!
Egg comes out from a hen’s stomach. And chick comes out from an egg. This has given rise to an age-old riddle: what comes out first? An egg or a chicken? Again there is one more controversy over egg: What type of food is egg? Is it veg. or non-veg.?