Chapter 8அதிகாரம் 8 அச்சம் Fear

He ringed the old town’s outer edge with thorns; the sickness came by a road that lay within.

The Tamil word for this sickness also means love-sickness, the longing that breaches a guarded heart.

A child who does not know a snake grabs it; a seasoned man knows the snake and fears it.

She stood and did not cry out. There was nothing in her voice; there was fire in her trembling fingers.

Even the man who went down into the sea and came back: when his feet get wet, his body feels the old wave.

She draws the string taut and plucks it; at the sound she takes fright, and the grip of her hand kills its voice.

The hand that drew the string taut so it would sound is the same hand whose grip, after the fright, deadens it.

Whoever fears the roaring wave sees not one strand of the net he weaves with his own hands each day.

A net catches whatever it closes around. In Tamil, ‘wave’ (alai) and ‘net’ (valai) sound almost alike.

The hand that kneaded was trembling, and the trembling too has gone into the dough.

Everyone who is born fears; the fearless kind are the unborn.

Under the water, breath going, he seizes a hand, and his own grip stops the breath.

To those inside a dark room even an ant is a tiger; in the light of the street it is the size of a cat.

In the light the ant shrinks only to a cat’s size, still far larger than an ant.