Moral science in America-3

Venkat, the good, religious, true to Indian culture boy, hated Binoy the most. Once, after Venkat had finished his late evening pooja, he walked into the kitchen to find Binoy frying fish. He was pretty much boiling with rage. 

'How dare you' he said. ' I couldn't concentrate on my pooja because of that disgusting smell.'

' Well, this is my dinner today and it takes a long time for this fish to cook. Sorry man.'

'You don't understand. Do you realize that you are making my ceremony impure? Do you believe in God? Its terrible to cook dead fish during this time, it ruins the whole pooja!'

' Listen. I don't know anything about God, but I'm sure he'd rather not have me faint out of starvation. I missed lunch today and I'm tired so lay off, will you? I'll try to fry my 'dead fish' around your pooja times from now on. But this is my house too and God doesn't pay my share of the rent."

After that day, Venkat treated Binoy like an untouchable. He took great care to scrub and wash the stove twice before he cooked, he left the living room when Binoy came in with food no matter what he had for dinner, locked his room very noisily with a mean looking, heavy duty padlock and demarcated the easy chair in the living room as his personal territory and would purposely sit there with a large mug of tea starting exactly when Binoy would get back from work, ready to sink in and watch TV. Strangely enough, Allen, cow-eating, beer-guzzling, all American, all white, art-student Allen, was never subjected to any ill will, at least not directly.

One particular evening when Alan was out, Venkat came home looking furious. He had scored really badly on a test. He slammed his door with a vengence and went about his evening pooja with such a fervor that it scared the shit out of me. Binoy, who took the same class had scored better.

'It wasn't an easy paper,' he explained to me, 'I had to bury myself in the library for days before the test. He's being too hard on himself, he keeps a pretty tight schedule with his poojas and all.'

I expected him to sulk in his room all day but Venkat was on the easy chair like clockwork, to engage in his daily ritual of hate. I could set my watch by him. As he determinedly pretended to read fluid mechanics, Binoy turned down the sound and said, ' Maybe you should consider cutting down on all these meaningless poojas you know. I really don't know how you get any studying done.'

'Meaningless?,' he spluttered, ' Meaningless? You culture-less freak. Just because you scored more than me on this test....it doesn't mean anything. You just wait. You'll have to pay. You just wait!'

With that, he stomped off into his room. Binoy got up and sank into the easy chair and let out an obscenely happy sigh.

Then he looked at me a bit puzzled, 'Pay for what?'

It was the wrong question. Because all of a sudden, Venkat burst out of his room and answered the unasked, ' Pay, how?' question.

He grabbed Binoy by his collar and pulled him to the ground and started punching the life out of him. I screamed and tried to pull him off but presently wound up on the floor, sort of, wounded (I think). Binoy was struggling helplessly against this raging animal. Then, Venkat grabbed a cushion on the floor and began to smother Binoy.

' You think I'm wasting my time? Ha? Think you're smarter than me? You think you know it all? I'll teach you man, I'll teach you. Don't you wish you had prayed harder now? Don't you? I hate people like you. I hate people like YOU!"

I was pissing in my pants. Frozen. Rooted to the spot. I couldn't move, even as I was witnessing a murder in action.