Big surprise! Maggi was never good for us

Why do we eat Maggi noodles?

Is it because it's great to taste?

Nah! It's rubbery and bland, despite the masala sachets found inside intended to make adults feel like children discovering toys inside candy wraps.

Is it because it's cheap?

Yes! College students living on pocket monies rely on Maggi because that's what they can afford. And affordability passed down generations often assumes a cult status. Consuming Maggi is therefore considered an act of bridging the yawning expenditure gap among classmates that's rendered invisible by this act of gastronomic redemption.

Stocking up on unnecessary carbohydrates as a countermeasure against the eruption of possible fissures between friends. A solidarity food made up of refined flour. (The fortified versions, such as those with "iron shakti", "calcium" or "oatmeal" were latter-day additions, perhaps inserted to camouflage the history of nutritional injustice.)

A reality TV of the mouth. 

Is it because it's "instantaneous" - the-two-minute-noodles?

That's how it's advertised anyway. The 2am (comfort) food? Yes. The 7pm half-hearted snack? Of course. Who needs "nutrition" when you can fill up your belly with a plateful of national nostalgia?

Is it because it's what we ate as children?

Our mothers, before rushing us to schools or welcoming us back from them, or between her grueling office schedules, could just manage the two-minute miracle? As was promised by Nestle, of course. Who counted vitamin portions and calibrated protein intakes when the kids were beaming with a sugar rush?

America globalised McDonald's. Sold us Coca Cola. Pepsi happened. Kentucky Fried Chicken made drippy drumsticks of heaven. Deep-fried chicken, like refined flour noodles, became matters of heart. Midwifed rooftop rebellions before we did the coke with the small c.

Why have we eaten Maggi all these years?

Why this uproar now with lead and monosodium glutamate in the noodles when activists have been crying hoarse over fizzy drinks for decades?

Remember the coke and mint experiments?

Not really, unless it's hashtagged. To match with the primetime shouting marathon variety on national television.

Go on. Eat Maggi and scream why does Maggi have lead and MSG in it? Eat Maggi and wonder how was it that Madhuri Dixit's morning gyration fooled you into shoving a bowlful of snaky carb into your mouth?

Does it hurt that your Maggi may contain less nutrition than "mid-day meals" served in the poor government-run ramshackle hutments of schools?

Does it suitably outrage you between 6pm and 9pm because that's when you'll be told how Maggi is the name of the devil of the day? Rent a cause, anyone? Yes, after a bellyful of blah.

Have you stopped McDonald'ing? Have you ceased to do Coke? Then why stop having Maggi? Why demand a probe, or a ban? Why hound Madhuri or Amitabh to be "responsible"?

Are you?