Maggi Wapsi

Courtesy - Google images

The Bombay High Court on Thursday set aside the countrywide ban on nine variants of Nestle’s Maggi instant noodles, saying the national food regulator had acted in an “arbitrary” manner and not followed the “principles of natural justice” while banning the product.

The residents of Hungristan are dusting cobwebs from their kitchen pots and pans, nervously clicking gas-lighters, hovering near their gas-stoves, their stomachs rumbling in anticipation. Their favourite, sweetheart of millions, Maggiwati is returning after a long vanwas.

Though it’s been only a few months since she went missing, but it feels like a lifetime. Unable to bear the trauma of waking up hungry on those lonely nights, and no simmering Maggiwati to cuddle up to, Dharmendra had taken to writing angst filled poetry. His composition – My life is an empty bartan
                     baby jaan, you are my dhakkan, 

                     ajaa hila de mera chammach, is now a superhit Honey Singh number, providing succour to unhappy souls guzzling beer at happy hours.

When Sunny, Bunny, Chavanni first heard this song at Maaji Bar, they promptly burst into tears. Something they hadn’t done in decades. Maggiwati was their pole of support through hours of harrowing traffic, snarling drivers and cacophonous symphony of horns. All they had to do was get back home alive and she’d be waiting for them lying coiled in her aromatic glory, waiting to be devoured.

She was simple unlike most women. All it needed was just two minutes to reduce her to a gooey mass of deliciousness. Okay, it took more than two, maybe 10. But once you fell for her easy charms, she became a lifetime obsession. Try as you might, you could never let go of her. In fact, you locked her in your cupboard, hid her in your drawers and sometimes under the bed. She was the answer to every hungry hosteller’s prayer seeking succour from the tyranny of mess food, the brightest thing at a girl’s pyjama party. She reminded her fans, her passionate lovers, her lifelong devotees of Ma kaa pyaar – unconditional, uncomplicated, a little unhealthy and filled with calories.

Maybe this is what made her so charming – the sin factor. Her bad girl appeal made her all the more desirable. The more your parents told you to stay away from her, the more you lusted for her.

There’s an old jungle saying, too much of a good thing always attracts the evil eye. Just as Maggiwati was busy sowing oats with desh ki dhak dhak, Madhuri, people started casting aspersions on her character. The noodle of suspicion was pointed at her. Maggi was accused of ‘lead’ing men and women to the path of damnation and betraying their trust. She was dragged from one laboratory to another and asked to prove her purity even as she protested her innocence.

The reports were damning. They all claimed she was poison.

The witch hunt had started. She was put on a stake, humiliated, pelted with stones even by those who’d declared their undying love for her in the privacy of their rooms. She was thrown out of cupboards, drawers and asked never to show her face again.

From the pedestal to garbage bin – it was indeed a mighty fall.

Even as Maggiwati drapes her yellow sari, getting ready for ghar-wapsi with full honours, she can’t help but smile wistfully. In her absence, Lady Why Wai, Yippee Leone and Patanjali Devi had tried their best to snake themselves into the heart of her admirers but failed miserably. How can you fall for these fakes when you’ve tasted the best with lots of monosodium glutamate!

Maybe this was the agnipareeksha that every true love must go through. The humiliation, taunts, getting disowned by your dearest. She felt like a heroine of a historical saga. She felt Juliet’s pain, Heer’s trauma, Sita’s disillusionment. Only this time she didn’t have to die in the end.

On the contrary, she had fought back like an emancipated woman of the 21st century and finally restored her tarnished image to its restored glory.

Maggiwati couldn’t wait to slide down the hungry gullets of her lovers in all her masala laden glory. But first she’ll have to take care of the bitches who engineered her downfall.