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India That is Bharat The billion-dollar blasphemy business America is a Christian country where anti-Christianity blasphemy is a billion-dollar business that entertains Americans morning, noon and night. IT is a given that you cannot be secular enough if you are not scurrilous enough. This being so, blasphemy is the barometer for measuring the height or depth of one?s secularism. Still, is not this blasphemy business getting a little out of hand? Look what?s happening. All Muslims are furious with that Danish cartoonist for lampooning Prophet Mohammed, while some Hindus (repeat, only some) are somewhat annoyed with M.F. Husain for showing Hindu gods and goddesses having sex with animals. The point here is, do Muslims have to be so disturbed by some dastardly Dane, and do even some Hindus have to be so pissed at some puerile Padma Vibhushan, for committing blasphemy, when neither of these two peoples has seen real blasphemy?I mean, the authentic, American article? For if, in these days of globalisation, we go to America for almost everything, ranging from ball pens to branded shirts, that is where we need to go, to that ?God?s own country?, to see ungodly blasphemy perfected as an art and practised as a pastime. America is a Christian country where anti-Christianity blasphemy is a billion-dollar business that entertains Americans morning, noon and night. So Satiricus has a simple piece of advice for touchy Hindus and touchier Muslims?if you really want to know real blasphemy, go to Christian America. It is there in American journals and books, on television, on radio?it is as omnipresent as God. The latest issue of the mod music magazine Rolling Stone features a ?rap? singer wearing Christ?s crowns of thorns on the cover. Dan Brown?s (in-)famous novel The Da Vinci Code posits Christ had sex. On television a programme called ?The spirit of Christmas? shows a fist-fight between Christ and Santa Claus that is full of obscenity. On the radio a morning show features a well-known comedian and his ?biblical sayings?, in which the disciples make shocking jokes?And these programmes are big hits, one and all. So why is all this American blasphemy such an outstanding success? Because, says an article on the subject in the Washington Post, ?The right to be religiously offended is the right to be a modern American?. And what does that exactly mean? Not being a modern American but being a backward Bharatiya, Satiricus is not sure. All he can guess is that modernity and blasphemy must be integrally linked. Or is all this just as admirable index of the American sense of humour? Oh, well, in that case the motto on the American dollar coin needs to be slightly improved upon. Currently it says, ?In God we trust?. It can be amended and improved to say, ?In God?s sense of humour we trust?. So how about some delightful denigration of desi deities? *   *   * When, once in a blue moon, Satiricus went to a fancy restaurant for a meal, the first thing he noticed was the gloom. The lights were so dim that you couldn´t see what?s what. When he asked why this was so, it was explained to him that it made for a cozy atmosphere while you ate. Satiricus had a more sensible explanation. He argued that it was good for business. For if you can?t see what you are eating, you won?t know what you are paying for. That is, you will put something in your mouth for which you will pay through your nose. Apparently, this joke of Satiricus is coming true. For a new restaurant has recently opened in London where diners eat in pitch black darkness. Customers here have no idea what they are eating, reports the Daily Telegraph. The idea, based on a successful similar restaurant in Paris, is reported to be that not being able to see what you are eating heightens the senses and liberates the taste buds. Good God! Satiricus thought good food tastes good even in broad daylight. Or are taste buds so shy of sunshine? Whatever the mystery, the question of questions here is, the dinner may well eat in the dark, but will the cashier bill in the dark? What if a devious dinner in the dark dupes the cashier and short changes him. Who is in the dark about the deception? Satiricus thinks somebody needs to throw light on this matter?and it better be sufficiently bright light. *   *   * When Kellogg?s cereals entered India some years ago, Satiricus thought globalised Indians had readied the very end of the road so far as eating imported food for thought was concerned. He was soon to learn that he lives and learns. For soon enough, Kellogg´s cereals were followed by a myriad ?pizzerias? and noodle bars. Did that satisfy our hunger for globalisation? It did not. For ?Subway?, the American sandwich MNC, has recently come into India that is Blessed Bharat with a big plan of 200 outlets in seven years, ?Kentucky Fried Chicken? may again pander to our palate, and ?Starbucks?, an international coffee business, is also reportedly arriving. So there! MNCs in the food and drink business are manna from the globalised heaven for us hungry and thirsty Bharatiyas. Then why do we have to worry about our farmers committing suicide and Americans patenting our rice? In fact why do we have to worry about anything when globalisation is there to give us everything we need (including many things we don?t need), from shoes to shirts, and from ball pens to books on how to retire on two million dollars? There are Indian economists who tell Satiricus that globalisation really means Americanisation, and that there is no such thing as an American Multi-National Company (MNC), it is actually an American company with multi-national operations. So what? While in India, why not do as Americans do?

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