by A. J. PHILIP
The new Madhya Pradesh law ignores ill treatment and starvation of millions of cows and their progenies in the State, while it goes after the “butchers” and “transporters” of cattle because they have names beginning with Mohammed
About a decade ago when my article headlined “The Missionary Position” appeared on the editorial page of the Indian Express, I got a call from Javed Anand to inquire whether the headline was given by a particular colleague to which I replied in the affirmative. My colleague in question is now with the India Today Group and had a knack for giving catchy headlines.
When I gave the article to him for a headline, he promptly came up with “The Missionary Position” and asked me whether it was okay. Since the article dealt with the charge that the Christians doing social work in the villages were indulging in proselytization, I found the headline fine. He also asked me whether I knew the meaning of the phrase.
It was at that point that I checked the dictionary and found that the “missionary position” also meant “a position for sexual intercourse in which a woman and a man lie facing each other with the woman on the bottom and the man on the top”. Though the article had nothing to do with lovemaking and explained the fallacy of the charge against Christians, I allowed the headline to appear.
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