Moolie Ka Saga: is like no other saga you may have read courtesy the pen-wielding of either Jackie Collins or apun ka desi Shobha De, the uncrowned but world renowned queens of sleaze and little else. 

It's nothing like a television saga - the likes of which began with Hum Log (ting-ting-ta-ring), Khaandaan (oh-ho...haan ji haan, yeh bhi toh tha) and Buniyaad ('my personal wife' type dialogues helped it hit the top of the charts when there was competition only in the form of 'Chaupal' - remember Ram, Ram Pancchon? ... and good ol' 'Krishi Darshan'). 

(No. Chitrahaar and Rangoli do not count as these were nowhere near sagas, being as they were a riot of suspect melodies 'inspired' by the West - for Bappida was at his peak in the days of transmissions such as these and his compositions always, but always compelled the actors and actresses in the film songs hosted during these programs to tease, tantalize but never touch each other in any way that lovers anywhere would - unless they were desirous of being dragged to the local loony bin!!)

So, what, you may as well ask now, is Moolie Ka Saga all about??

Well, your patience has paid off, dear visitor for I'm about to reveal to you all the gory details about the real story behind MOOLIE KA SAGA!! 

(It's my nightly prayer these days.)   


And herein hangs a tale: introducing, Moolie Ka Saga!!!

The devil doesn't always wear Prada. 
Sometimes, a blue odhni and an 80's eestyle cotton punjabi suit will do just as well. 

What the devil does do is" grow Moolies!! Knowing I have to sleep next to the people that eat 'em.

Yeah, yeah, moolies...those thingies that were christened a decent 'White Radish' by them 'Gora' log who thought it 'fit-fart' (yes, that was intentional) and dunno how rad, to dish it only onto the menfolk's plates and diddle the mem-log outta the stuff. (Because, my feminist doppel ganger insists, they thought it their birth-right to make their presence known and unladylike to 'gas-sip!!')

Not that we're complaining (and I do hope I can echo these sentiments on behalf of the rest of my genteel femme-kinds); but, yes, grow them, if you will, Devi(l)- ji, in the patch outside your tin-roof tenement and feed them and their plumage to men-folk other than mine!!

This is an official complaint and I'll let it be known (or, rather Dexter and Donny did - technically speaking, and all that) that the devil in question is none other than dearly beloved (till 3 days ago) house-help, Deepa, who has unanimously been voted (by all of us 3) as destroyer of civil, sound and sweet sleep. For, of late, she's developed a manic green thumb with which she's poked and pried many fledgling white radish plants to full bloom and gotten them to grow into a season's worth in her barely there patch of garden space(!?!)

Now, the generous hearted lady that she is - Deepa - (I'm surer by the second that Elvis crooned 'Devil in Disguise' for Jemima here - here's the rest of the story and you'll be convinced, too) thinks nothing of unearthing a few of these rad dishes, leaves et all - and not content simply presenting them to me, actually insisted on cooking them!! (Now, if that's not trying to make sure I don't have a way out of her carefully laid plan - to deprive me of a good (well-deserved, I'd like to add, martyr that I am) night's sleep, which is the only likely scenario even a blind man would be able to see if rad dishes were fed to anyone sleeping next to him, thanks to the after-effects of her 'Go-Green' gift...I don't know what is!!)

She ended off her Greens are Good For the Human Heart (and forgot conveniently to mention They Make You Burp And Make You Fart, eh?) sermon, tucked her hairpin back into her bun (or was she patting herself in a circumspect way for the fun she'd have imagining my sleepless state in an unsweet boudoir environ tonight???)

Okay, I may have kinda invited her help, in the sense that when she asked if I'd cooked the moolie leaves she'd deigned to give me from her veggie patch, I'd mumbled a miserable sorta 'yeah, but it was bitter though, we ate it - not like the other saag you get us, Deepa.' 

Of course, Dexter piled on to the convvy train too, enthusiastically trashing my valiant efforts at cooking greens, (something I've only gotten the hang of after marriage - having tied the knot with an Anglo-Indian Pundit - yes, there's such a thing, too!) and added his 'awful, really bleech-blaauggh - awful,' type of confirmation to the answer that could have well survived with just a dignified nod.

So Deepa pronounced her expert (unsolicited, I'll have you know) judgment: 'You must have put haldi in the greens.'

(So what?? was my first reaction - my greens, my haldi! Okay, yes, I did. I'll stick to so what and stick out my nose and chin at them for good measure. Haldi's yellow and yellow means sunshine means happy so I'm happy putting haldi and preventing broken bones. Haldi is a healer - that makes me a cook-doctor, which is good all around. Okay, okay - I goofed - happy now??)

Hmmn, said I. 

Dexter smiled across at Deepa from the Divan he was lounging on (I was mentally re-arranging the folds of the counterpane and the tossed up cushions in my imagination and openly glaring at him), " Aap bana do - issay bhi sikha doh." 

Bas! What else did dame Deepa want 'xcept to shame me and also get a chance to show off her culinary skills while ensuring I have sleepless, stinky nights courtesy the gourmands that get to taste her cooking, more specifically Moolie ka saga cooking???

Toh, of course, my telling her the leaves were bitter did not deter her from bringing more, (not at all. For in her little pahari brain that was far from a hint about "leave me freakin' alone you nut-case, addle-brain, gardening goose, I'm dying here with the vapid vaporous nightly doses the rad dishes elicit in the men in my family" and interpeted more like 'I'll be eternally grateful to you if you teach me how to massacre this moolie, bring me more from your ever-healthy garden and even cook 3 days worth of it for me so I all but stay enveloped in an aroma of Stinkers, The Scent For Real Sewer Cleaners!)

Being nice doesn't pay. For, I smiled instead of scowled at Dex's suggestion and Deepa's acquiescence to cook up the ghoulish stuff and, that's what got me in this smelly mess.

So, as I was saying, being nice doesn't pay (yes, yes, I'm telling you) - not with the Devil (Deepa - in this case) and not with Dex and definitely not with Don. (Have you noticed, all are D's? - Not a co (incidence, yaar), I tell you!!) 

He thought it really funny - actually 'funny - kool' to be precise - to be able to fart in 7 different languages after dinner, lunch and dinner again (because we had to finish the stuff yaar - and Dex was going all ga-ga over it anyway).

Yeah, Don was letting off like no-one's business and that too, when Mr. Pant (whom we lovingly and surreptiously refer to as Panty - not coz he's a weirdo sniffing ladies' varieties or wears them either - but coz he's always so prim and propah that if for nothing else, he must loosen up a bit with his nickname, therefore, wickedly intimate and lusciously lacy Panty it is we've tagged him) had paid us one of his rare visits, over tea!!

Horrors will never cease!! (the bombardment continued, albeit sotto voce)

Donnys will never learn!! (when to stop)

Dexters will never help!! (when bad gets worse)


The atmosphere was heavy with anticipation - and a lot more - that we in polite society refer to as 'the unmentionables.' But, what with the wind carrying word of meals consumed and let loose, Donny looked gleeful he was capable of such 'acoustics' and Dex looked amused, unrepentant and a trifle bemused (the kind of expression on a guilty party's face when the teacher asks, knowing with all her gut instict this is the chappie who dunnit, and the response is so practised-blank that it's a wonder she doesn't burst a blood vessel). He even managed a gentle, nuzzling 'hmmmn...' (read whazzat??x 39,000!!)

There wasn't really much for me to wish for after that debacle of a dinner-lunch-dinner roundelle routine: except this, then, you'll agree -

(My nightly prayer text these days, post the Devi(l)'s visit)

Dear Lord, 

 Please make Deepa's moolies die a sudden, unaesthetic and catastrophic death (since paharis are a superstitious lot, nothing short of a natural calamity, (read UFO, cyclone & maybe a baby skeleton holding the offending moolie) will discourage her from growing and giving me these wretched plants and I don't have to sleep next to my boys who eat the damn stuff. (Oh, sorry for the damned word - unless it's acceptable now in ethereal colloquial speech, esp. when you send off souls to the Down Under Hot-House??)

Amen!

.....                      ......                         ......                         ......                            ......                 .....

As for you lot of Sulekha-ites, if you don't think this is half as bad, then I'll have you know that D&D eating moolies 3 days in a row (including the pattas - yeah, the saag-ah!) is enough to scare our nearest enemies to Uzbekistan if only the National Chemical Warfare Division could find a way to bottle it!!

"No dearth of Ammo for the Indian Army
as long as there is Deepa the Devil and her Mooli ka saga."

(That's my kahani.)