LONDON, ENGLAND, May 13, 2002: Selfridges store has stopped selling cakes with icing decoration depicting Hindu Gods and Goddesses after complaints that they offended religious sensibilities. The cakes were featured as part of a three-week summer promotion of Indian foods, and were on sale next to a food counter where Hemant Oberoi, the Indian Prime Minister’s personal chef for overseas visits, was supervising the preparation of curry recipes. Hindu customers who complained said that Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary seldom appeared as cake decorations. “I think this is depicting the Hindu pantheon in a mocking way,” Bimal Krishna Das, of the UK Council of Hindu Temples, said. The cakes came from Seriously Scrumptious of Glastonbury. Its founder, Rita Hraiz, of Indian and Lebanese parentage, said that they were made with love and not intended to offend. She said that the firm gave a fifth of its profits to an Indian charity supporting Indian villages near the Hindu sacred city of Vrindavan.
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