  We study interaction of generic asymmetric molecules with a pair of strong
time-delayed short laser pulses with crossed linear polarizations. We show that
such an excitation not only provides unidirectional rotation of the most
polarizable molecular axis, but also induces a directed torque along this axis,
which results in the transient orientation of the molecules. The asymmetric
molecules are chiral in nature and different molecular enantiomers experience
the orienting action in opposite directions causing out-of-phase oscillation of
their dipole moments. The resulting microwave radiation was recently suggested
to be used for analysis/discrimination of chiral molecular mixtures. We reveal
the mechanism behind this laser induced orientation effect, show that it is
classical in nature, and envision further applications of light with skewed
polarization.
