As President Clinton's secret Grand Jury testimony is being aired on television across the world, a hush has descended on the United States as people digest the import of this landmark event. Although the telecast of the testimony began at about 9.30 am when people get into office, it is being seen live by substantial number of people -- at home by homemakers and in offices, restaurants and cafeterias by working people. But perhaps an equal number are going about their regular business. Many of them will catch the distilled highlights in prime time news later in the day.

All major cable news networks -- CNN, Fox, MSNBC and C-Span -- are carryingthe event live and without editing. So are the three big networks -- ABC, NBC and CBS -- which have forsaken their usual quota of morning soap operas for this remarkable television event.

About two hours into the four-hour testimony -- at the time of writing -- the President is being grilled about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and his efforts to cover it up. He is coming across relatively well, although he is said to become increasingly testy later on. Much of the first two hours center around definition of sexual relations and legal parsing as the President matches legal wits again Ken Starr's tenacious and painstaking prosecutors. Clinton, incidentally has a law degree and briefly taught law at the University of Arkansas. The office of Independent Counsel is somewhat like the Lok Pal or Lok Ayukta in India, except it has far more teeth and functions far more effectively. Much of the world got to see the majesty of the law as the President was seen treated like an ordinary man.

President Clintonhimself is in New York and at the time the testimony is airing he is addressing the opening session of the UN General Assembly. Only CNNs Headline News is carrying that event live.

The President began his Grand Jury testimony looking tense and resentful but as the questioning wore on he looked more relaxed and often sounded sardonic about the jam he had landed himself in. The tape of the testimony showed only the President as Ken Starr's faceless inquisitors clinically and methodically tried to prove the President committed perjury, suborned perjury and obstructed justice as he tried to cover up his relationship with the White House intern. The first half hour was spent in legal jousting as the President testified, in the face of some relentless questioning, that he understood sexual relations to include sexual intercourse. Media mavens and pundits expect the public to react adversely to the President's legal parsing. The President -- who has said that at the back of his mind he expected the tape to beshown to the public -- accused his legal opponents of politicising the issue. He told Starr's lawyers that they had made this the most important issue in America.

The taped testimony was divided into seven sessions. The most graphic parts of the testimony began in the fourth part as the principle prosecutor Robert Bitmann, whose face was never shown on the tape, began asking the President intimate questions about his sexual conduct, including kissing parts of a woman's body and inserting objects into a woman's body.

The President went red-faced at that this line of questioning.