My Share of Sand (A Calabasas Fable)

4-The Prophet's Song

"Darius, would you mind if we allowed your classmates to raise their hands at any point if they have questions?" asked Ms. Stranahan.

"No," he shook his head. The shake was mostly from confusion for why she was asking him for permission. It was her classroom, after all.

Stranahan sat at her desk in rapt attention. The class mostly seemed bored. A few wondered why he was bringing a Ralph's grocery bag with him as he walked to the front of the class.

"So basically, about three thousand years ago a guy named Zarathustra, or Zoroaster in Greek, started a religion, and it became the religion of the Persian Empire for several hundred years, then Islam came on the scene, so some Zoroastrians moved to India, and the Zoroastrians there are called Parsis, and I'm a Parsi. When I was nine, I did a ceremony called the navjote—"

"How do you spell that?" interrupted Ms. Stranahan.

"N-A-V-J-O-T-E, navjote, rhymes with 'have boat'. Anyway, it's our initiation ceremony, kinda like a Bar Mitzvah or a baptism or a confirmation. So I had to take a ritual bath, then we walked into a room where a fire is burning. Fire is important in our religion, but we don't worship it. And I recited some prayers in the old Persian language—." With that, Darius dug into the Ralph's bag and produced a piece of white cloth and a white cord. He also scanned the crowd to see who was paying attention. Two sets of eyes stood out as seeming engaged and involved: Templynn and Colinda.

"This is called a sedreh," he explained, holding the garment up, then holding the cord. "This is called a kushti. The sedreh is basically a shirt, and you tie the kushti around your waist. And the navjote is the first time you put those on, and you're suppose to wear them under your clothes for the rest of your life as a symbol of your faith."

With that, one boy's hand shot up. "Yes," Stranahan acknowledged him.

"How come you're not wearing that right now?"

"Well, it's from when I was nine. It's too small for me now," he chuckled.

"But you're wearing a bigger one now, right?" he asked.

"Actually, no," Darius shook his head.

"Why not?" the boy pressed him.

"It's a traditionalist thing. In India I guess they still wear them all the time. None of the Parsis here wear them. Well, a couple do, but they're kind of weird anyway. So, I have a few other things I brought." Darius took the incense burner from the sack and handed it to the girl in the right front desk. "I'll just let you pass this down to each other so you can look at it. Every night at our house we do a ritual called the loban where we go around the house and burn incense. Some people say it purifies the house. Some people say it keeps out mosquitoes."

Stranahan jumped in. "Something some people are probably curious about is your name. If you don't mind me bringing it up, but Purveyor is kind of an unusual last name. How did you get it?"

"Parsis didn't have last names, then the British took over India and told them they had to start having last names, so a lot of people just used their jobs. So my great-great-great-grandfather owned a liquor store, and he called himself Amir Purveyor. There's supposed to be a Parsi family in Mumbai named Sodabottleopenerwala. When you think about it, Baker isn't any less weird than Purveyor. Or Cook."

Then came an interruption: "Oh wow! What's this smell?"

The burner had made its way to Templynn, and she was impressed.