Lessons From ‘Maggi’.

          The yellow packets of 2-minute noodles are available in black now that the government has banned them. Don’t see them on the shelves? Bend over the counter and lower your head and shoulders on the other side. They (noodle-packets, not head and shoulders) are hidden from inquisitive eyes and health inspectors, but you can find them if you’re determined. The bending over is a yogic asana effective for curing cravings for MNC-manufactured insta-foods.

Lesson one: if you’re not into yoga but willing to pay more than the MRP, you will get what you want without taxing the flexibility of your spine.

Lesson two: if you see two flies inside a posh restaurant, scream and demand compensation. Actually, carry the flies (or ‘roaches if you have the nerve) along in your purse/pocket and release those as soon as your order arrives. Yell about the hygiene, poor service and how you will refuse to get fleeced. Doesn’t work in roadside stalls because your ‘pets’ will get lost in the cloud of unfriendly flying creatures present there. Besides, no legitimately elected government here will disturb indigenous insects. They’re ‘ours’. We look after our own. We’re not afraid of that foreign-invention called ‘infection’, we have gaunyle.

Lesson three: We don’t need MNCs to feed us. We have our very own ‘hakka noodles with sambar sauce’, Punjabi chicken Manchuria da, schezwan poha, and crisp soaked-in-soya idlis, thank you. China doesn’t know it yet, but its centuries-old cuisine is in serious trouble. Every urban gully-corner here has Make in India ammunition being manufactured in kadhais. Motivated eaters have fire in their bellies, ready to tackle the acchhey din of the morrow… with kerosene-flavoured noodles and oily rice.

Lesson four: all packed things must be suspect. Check with the news channels what is safe to eat. Biscuits, bread, salt, roasted groundnuts (also called peanuts), chips (or wafers).

Lesson five: what is unsafe to eat in India is safe to eat in Singapore.

Shri Husband gave an irritating cluck when I recited the five lessons to him.

“Fail to understand your logic,” he confessed. Imagine him admitting to having failed. In anything. Good enough for me.

I said: “We will now eat only non-packed food.”

“Like what?” he asked cautiously.

“Fish,” I replied, hastily adding, “After the monsoon ban is lifted, we’ll get nice plump fish.”

“You know,” he said cruelly. “The sea-food hereabouts might be fattened on sewage.”

“Eek,” I said. “What sewage?”

“From Karachi,” he said. That sounded serious.

“You mean the Pakis are poisoning…?”

He wouldn’t let me finish, as usual. He interrupted: “… when the tide turns, the Karachi fish will have to taste Mumbai’s sewage. Nature knows no boundaries.” That sounded awesome. Awful. Whatever.

I looked carefully at his face. He wasn’t jesting, he seemed grave.

“It’s ok,” I said comfortingly, trying to cheer him up, “That’s between those cities. Our Goan fish digest everything. As long the fish is fresh, why complain, we can eat, no?”

Shri Husband hit his palm on his forehead. What’s the matter with the man? He’s always like this when I try to reason with him.

“The point is,” Shri Husband spoke slowly, which meant the mood was bad. “There’s no guarantee that our prawns don’t have high mercury levels, that our water is free from toxins. Even the air we breathe isn’t safe in many places, and we can’t blame other countries for that.”

I picked up a magazine with a picture of a human skull, some cross-bones and a lit cigarette on it. “Cigarettes!” I said helpfully, adding to his list. “One more thing that kills. The government must ban them.”

“And what else?” he asked nonchalantly.

What else? I wondered. What more could I say? Coffee has caffeine, tea has tannin, milk has antibiotics, sugar is harmful, maida is harmful, beef is getting banned in places, pork maybe next, flavour-essences are harmful, white polished rice is harmful, factory-made biscuits are harmful. Don’t eat processed cheese, don’t eat packed pickles. Or sauces. Refined oil is bad for the health. Insta-foods kill. If you do long, slow cooking, then boredom kills. What to do? I wanted to say something, but didn’t know where to begin.

Before I could respond, he said, “No one’s talking about shampoos, toothpastes, soaps, gels, perfumes and what illnesses they bring on.”

That was a googly, threw me completely off-track.

“From Maggi to this…you really have le(a)d me on (no pun intended). You’re a real Plumbum,” I said to Shri Husband.

So, Maggi lesson number six: life is unpredictable. (Like the trends of the conversations between me and Shri Husband.) You’re on top-of-the-shelf making profits for years, and then the graph dives.

I said to Shri Husband: “I’m going to buy Nestle shares, they’ve hit a low. Someday, they might go up and I’ll have spare rupees to spend.”

His response: “Stick to writing.” That was the last lesson of the day. Maggi lesson number seven.

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in