What is Shankara Eating Salt on Vanilla Ice Cream?

The action of Shankara eating salt on vanilla ice cream represents the code of the Brahmin caste that the Hoyka cannot understand. Shankara's cousins had dared him to eat salt on vanilla ice cream and when he did, they were disgusted by him. They told him that it had been a joke. This secret code of jokes shows readers that even when a person of a lower caste gets rich enough, they will never be able to truly be accepted. The rich are all talk when asked to do something but the lower castes will actually do that thing. It also symbolizes the tensions that can arise between the different castes in India because of these misunderstandings.