A Raw Score

a paperback by Shashi Krishna

Story #18: A brahmin's curse

Vidyashankar Dixit was born into a quintessential South Indian Brahmin family that adhered to the strong rituals of Brahminism. Right from ensuring that one should not touch any part of their body after touching cooked rice, right to ensuring that true Brahmins conducted the revered Sandhyavandanam twice each day. And so, Vidyashankar too was fed on a rich diet of Hindu ideals and a strong reverence to the sacred texts - Upanishads, Vedas, Mahabharatam etc. With such a strong religious upbringing, Vidyashankar had always found it hard to control what he knew was a potentially harmful power of the 'Brahmin'. He understood how close his kind was to the Almighty and what divine degree of lethal weapons had been granted to the pure and unadulterated soul of a true Brahmin.

Sadly, what Vidyashankar did not expect, is that one breezy morning on hsi way to work, his powers will be challenged and a result of which will end up committing the greatest sins of all. A sin that will take seven more births of 'Brahmin' cleansing to finally get rid of. A curse, which due to its terrible timing, would cost him a lot more than he had expected.