Chapter 82அதிகாரம் 82 பொறுப்புக்கூறல் Accountability

If the guard set at the door is himself the thief, then for all his guarding there is no door.

A thousand footfalls have trodden the flower down; who is there to say at whose foot it fell?

They hold up the snapped rope and ask, ‘Who let it go?’; ‘Who was holding it?’ they never ask.

‘Who let go’ finds the last hand on the rope; ‘who was holding it’ asks whose charge the rope was all along.

On a dark day, when the lighthouse fire has not been lit, the shore asks why the ship went off course.

If a pillar that was not set firmly falls, the town grows angry; the blame belongs to the unseen hand that planted the pillar.

Those who tell their own fault have no one searching for it; those who hide it have the whole town searching for it.

The arrogant man pushes away those who would stop him; he has no one to stop him.

They set fire to the man who cried ‘Fire!’ On another day, even with fire in plain sight, no one says ‘Fire’.

He said the crack in the wall was old. The day after the wall fell, he said it was new. A lie.

When good comes, he says ‘I did it’; when bad comes, he says ‘It happened.’ One body, two mouths.