Ashish Shinde, president of Alpha Omega Christian Mahasangh, asks how could Kareena Kapoor Khan name the book ‘Pregnancy Bible’ and get away with committing blasphemy! Shinde has lodged a complaint at the Shivaji Nagar Police Station in Bheed, Maharashtra, and wants strict action taken against Kareena!

Naming her firstborn ‘Taimur’ had led to controversy, and hue and cry, worse than what’s happening now with Shinde screaming foul. The ‘Taimur’ moniker raised a lot of battle dust because centuries ago invader Taimur-the-Lame had led an army of marauding hordes into the subcontinent and wrecked mayhem all the way from the ‘border’ to the Dilli of then.

“How could you name him Taimur?” asked outraged Hindu Indians, targeting both Kareena and her husband Saif Ali Khan. But the mainstream media fought for Kareena and Saif and made ‘Taimur’ a name to reckon with, in the process turning ‘lil’ Taimur into a minor celebrity, recording his progress every little step of the way, from infant to toddler to ‘lil kid’.

Today Taimur has a bro named 'Jeh' to play with, protect and hold. But Taimur’s mother Kareena is once again under fire. Shinde’s ‘mahasangh’ of “English challenged” is gunning for her. In his complaint, Shinde referred to ‘Pregnancy Bible’, the title of the book, and wanted a case registered under IPC section 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) against Kareena.

The Bheed police, however, told Shinde to lodge the case in Mumbai because the “crime” was committed in Mumbai and not in Bheed. Interestingly, Kareena called ‘Pregnancy Bible’ her “third child” in a series of posts on social media. The book is a “personal account” of her two pregnancies. And by that token it shouldn’t have been any business of Apha Omega Christian Mahasangh.

The book ‘Pregnancy Bible: The ultimate manual for moms-to-be’ is verified by the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI), the official body of gynaecologists and obstetricians in the country. And folks at ‘Juggernaut Publishers’ know their English better than Shinde and his Christian ‘mahasangh’, enough for Juggernaut to go with the title and not baulk at ‘blasphemy!’

So, why do we say Alpha Omega Christian Mahasangh is ‘English challenged’? That’s because Shinde knows his ‘ABC…’ but has no clue that English words are also used in different contexts and the same word can convey different meanings. Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, who writes in Bengali, has no problems with ‘Pregnancy Bible’, because she knows that ‘Bible’ is another word for ‘book(s)’.

Nasreen tweeted her ‘okay’ to the title in English, but Shinde perhaps doesn’t “follow” Taslima on Twitter if he’s on Twitter. So he doesn’t know that Taslima has given her consent, but he could have at least looked up the dictionary, Oxford, Cambridge or Webster, and got acquainted with the word ‘Bible’ in all its various connotations, avatars!

So, what’s the definition of ‘Bible’? According to Merriam-Webster, ‘Bible’ is the sacred scriptures of Christians comprising the Old Testament and the Old Testament. That’s also Shinde’s definition. But another meaning of ‘Bible’ is ‘Book’ or ‘Books’ though it’s an “obsolete” word nowadays and is not in use.

There’s, however, yet another usage. The ‘Bible’ is also any book that is regarded as “authoritative” on any subject, like the ‘Angler’s Bible’, and the ‘Fisherman’s Bible’ or, for that matter, the ‘Pregnancy Bible’, i.e., the final and most authoritative work/word on pregnancies, and deliveries!

So, when Kareena Kapoor Khan names her book on pregnancies ‘Pregnancy Bible’, she’s conveying that her word on pregnancies is the most authoritative. It’s up to the reader to agree or disagree with Kareena Kapoor Khan, but he/she should read the book from cover to cover and not look at it with a jaundiced religious eye, as Shinde and his Alpha Omega Christian Mahasangh did.

But India is full of the ‘English Challenged’ who also happen to be religious bigots. So it is that Shinde’s complaint has been picked up and turned into a diatribe against Kareena Kapoor Khan’s marriage and religious persuasion. A young Supreme Court lawyer who has appointed himself Hinduism’s final bastion, who also swears allegiance to politician-litigant Subramanian Swamy, has made a video and uploaded it on YouTube. Guy doesn’t know that Kareena Kapoor was a practicing Christian who married a Muslim! The controversy over 'Pregnancy Bible' is biblical to say the least. (IPA Service)