The Faith of Ashish by Kay Marshall Strom

shuddered. "How terrifying!"
    "I wasn't afraid," Boban Joseph boasted. "Why should I be? I have a knife and I know how to use it."
    As Rama's eyes grew wider and wider, Boban Joseph's chest puffed out with pride.
     

     
    When two hours had passed and still no one called for him, Mammen Samuel rose to his feet and bellowed, "Keshavan Namboodri!" He made no attempt to hide his growing fury. "I have come to talk with you, Brahmin Keshavan. Not to your servant or some other person in your family, but to you!"
    This time no one answered, not even a servant. Mammen Samuel had little choice but to continue to wait. He paced the length of the veranda, from the pungent pepper vines across to the fragrant jasmine blossoms, then back again. Back and forth he paced, back and forth, but still Brahmin Keshavan did not come.
    Clattering tins echoed through from the kitchen, and the aroma of chutney with leeks, and curried potatoes, filled the air. Mammen Samuel, who relished eating meat, would never be tolerated in the Brahmin's house, let alone invited to share his table. But he knew, as everyone did, that every single thing in the Brahmin's kitchen was prepared in adherence with strictly observed Brahmin caste rules. Each food stayed in its place so that nothing touched the wrong thing. Only Brahmin hands were allowed to prepare food for Brahmin mouths. The food might be dropped into the dirt or nibbled by rats or covered with flies, but it must never be touched by lower caste hands. Nor did any left hand touch the food, only right hands. Left hands were unclean.
    As Mammen Samuel considered how he might force his way into the house and confront Keshavan, the Brahmin at last stepped out onto the veranda. Without waiting for a greeting, Mammen Samuel stated through clenched teeth, "Keshavan Namboodri, I have come to demand that you remove your curse from my harvest!"
    Neither curiosity nor anger passed over the Brahmin's serenely passive face. "But it was I who blessed your harvest," he reminded the landlord.
    "What you did was conjure up a man-eating tiger and set it to prey on my laborers!"
    "Tigers are wild animals," the Brahmin said. "They roam where they will."
    "You purposely disrupted my harvest, and now you insult me with great disrespect!" Mammen Samuel's face flushed scarlet with rage. "For over two hours, you have kept me waiting in the hot sun. No one offered me so much as a drop of water to refresh myself!"
    "To bring in your harvest is your duty," the Brahmin said." It is my duty to perform my daily sacrifices. I do not ask you to stop your harvest and talk to me at a time of my choosing, and I do not intend to stop my duties to talk to you whenever you decide to stand outside my door and yell my name.""Your duties? You have no duties!"
    "You are wrong. Every morning, I worship Brahma, the World-Spirit, by reciting the Vedas. I worship the ancestors by partaking of ritual water drinks. I worship the gods by pouring ghee on the sacred fire. I worship all living things by scattering grain on the threshold of my house for the benefit of animals, birds, and spirits. Only then do I worship men by showing hospitality to such a one as yourself."
    "Hospitality!" Mammen Samuel sputtered. "After all the time you kept me waiting on your veranda, hot and without refreshment, you dare use the word hospitality?"
    Brahmin Keshavan, his face placid, didn't bother to respond. Nor did he make any move to seat himself. He simplystood and gazed at Mammen Samuel with expressionless eyes and an unreadable face.
    "What of the tiger?" Mammen Samuel demanded.
    "What of it?"
    "Is it an evil spirit?"
    "The world is filled with spirits, both good and evil," the Brahmin said.
    Mammen Samuel sputtered in exasperation.
    "You are right about my spiritual powers," Brahmin Keshavan said. "Most certainly they are great enough to destroy any king or would-be king should he attempt to infringe on my rights as Brahmin priest. But I need not conjure up a tiger to