The Maggi Moments

Nestle should be paying me a honorarium for this title, for helping their brand recall after the litigation about its palatability. Don’t rush into judgements about the content of this article yet.  Maggi and two-minutes have become so synonymous to each other and I chose to use Maggi because it appeals to more people in the Indian sub-continent. Caution to those who expect another article about food. Keep away. This is to speak of everything but food. This is about the Pee-Pooh-Puck.  People who are prone to puking stop reading further. Been Indian throughout, not stepped once out of this soil, everything here is in the Indian context only.

Begin with a thought about two minutes of your life that you may be allowed to go back and correct in your time-machine. Which two minutes would you choose. Not one, definitely, there could be many two-minutes that you might want to change. Then, choose only the most important two-minutes that had changed your life.

Why ‘two-minutes’. As per my understanding about life and many of its important events, ‘two-minutes’ is the crescendo of any act, whatever be the build-up towards and afterwards. Any urge humane, if controlled effectively for this two-minute-period, call it maggi-moments, all damage eventually would have already been contained.

Travelling long distances have come down as we grow older, since the natural urge to Pee every two hours could constrain our travel and the reduced control over our bladder further intensifies the constraints. We still have a dearth of Loos on the highways. In spite of the growing number of vehicle users and the need to relieve ourselves of the voluminous fluids that we accumulate so frequently, we tend to ignore this ‘convenience’, conveniently.  While we men stand out at whichever pole or tree that we come across on the highway and rush up on our maggi-moments, do we really think of the women in the family, especially the older ones, who are more prone to such urges due to their age.  Like Nestle’s conflict with the regulators, we too forget the necessity to have Loos as soon as we are done with Peeing.

Poohing is yet gone nastier. Want of functional toilets have been long time due. Thanks to ‘Swacch Bharat’ Abhiyaan, we have got into this most-avoided discussion.  Much needs to be moved from the concept to the action.  Public toilets had been disregarded, abandoned, disused and thus rendered dysfunctional.  There is general apathy to this, disuse by the general public and restricted use by the economically weaker sections, had reduced the demand for quality in maintenance of such facilities. Once the emergency or maggi-moment is over, issue about a badly maintained lavatory would get forgotten as it never existed.  Many middle-class brethren would be caught guilty on a mention of having used a public lavatory.  In spite of availability of water, payment for maintenance and a nominal fee to motivate the contractors, these utilities are far from the standards for use. We can make a great difference, if we only take note of the shortcomings of such a facility – only when we visit – and report to the authorities concerned. Like in many other issues, we declare before hand that nothing can be done – without doing what we should have dutifully done. Think Poohing at a public lavotary, many of us would end up Puking.

Puck –Oh ! the father of all evils. I hope I have used the word right. Our forefathers, not many generations ago, have been very powerful in establishing this wrong a right. Wrong in the perspective of its use and not its purpose.  When they failed to exercise controls or the available methods of contraception, during their maggi-moments, they rendered our grand-mothers as child-vending-machines. They in turn were gladly bracing up for their prowess in child-bearing despite their age, and lining up alongside their daughters with their pot-bellies.  They took pride in doling out children in dozens.  Good that these dozens halved over three generations and made a couple in the last one.  Single-child is a good norm, no matter what the sociologists may debate otherwise.   Discussion about Puck doesn’t end here.  As highlighted, this is father of all evils.  Recall the rapist’s claims in the Delhi story. An adolescent by age, this rapist has bragged about the incident which ended up with a gruelling murder of a girl.  On the contrast, he has some elders who still speak in his favour – justifying the act and holding the victim responsible.  According to me, the person should be castrated like it is done to any animal for being an animal and losing the human instincts.  Animals must be caged.  There is another story of a very rich and affluent lady killing her own children to pursue more riches and men who are after their maggi-moments. The puck-issue is less reported probably because, we as society, are mindful of our children and the influences such incidents can have on them.  Simple thought to the brethren, if only we defer the maggi-moments in such acts, or allow the sensibility to prevail over sensitivity, many of the undesired twists in life can be well avoided.

If you are feeling grumpy, yes- I have set you thinking. Now, I believe the purpose of this article is done.