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LONDON, ENGLAND: “Goodness Gracious Me” is the BBC’s Asian comedy show. They all went to India to film a special, and large crowds gathered to watch as the show’s stars — Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Nina Wadia and Kulvinder Ghir — along with Dave Lamb, the actor they affectionately call “TWB” (token white bloke). The show is scheduled to air in March. Since GGM’s seminal sketch in which a group of drunken Indians “go for an English” (a meal, that is) in a late-night restaurant, its take on the interaction of British and Indian culture has picked up a devoted following, with an estimated 4,000,000 viewers. The stars say that coming to India means more than authentic locations and more about introducing British whites and Asians to each other, as well as to draw the viewership of native Indians. Star TV channel aired the first three shows of the series prefaced by a warning that viewers may be offended by irreverent depictions of religion. At a press conference at the British Council in Delhi, local journalists watched a sample of GGM sketches — depictions of overbearing Indian mothers, the Indian caste system and police racism with an English police officer trying to interest his skeptical Indian colleagues in a spate of racially motivated attacks on whites — drew particular interest. “The BBC allows you to put this out?” one local journalist asked, incredulously. Ghir is confident that the truths unmasked by this British-style comedy can help all countries in what he calls “a global race towards a society where everyone is accepted.”

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