Page:Broken Ties and Other Stories.pdf/10

 ‘They are not liars,’ interrupted Satish.

‘I have a neighbour,’ he went on, ‘who has epileptic fits. Last winter I gave him a blanket. My servant came to me in furious temper, and told me that the boy only feigned the disease. These students who malign me are like that servant of mine. They believe what they say. Possibly my fate has awarded me an extra blanket which they think would have suited them better.’

I asked him a question: ‘Is it true what they say, that you are an atheist?’

He said: ‘Yes.’

I bent my head to the ground. I had been arguing with my fellow-students that Satish could not possibly be an atheist.

I had received two severe blows at the outset of my short acquaintance with Satish. I had imagined that he was a Brahman, but I had come to know that Satish belonged to a Bania family, and I in whose veins flowed a bluer blood was bound duly to despise all Banias. Secondly, I had a rooted belief that atheists were worse than murderers, nay, worse even than beef-eaters.

Nobody could have imagined, even in a dream, that I would ever sit down and take my meals with a Bania student, or that my fanatical zeal in