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The sight of the flower on the tree was more beautiful than its scent.
He imagined how the front yard would look when the tree spread its branches over it. Even while planting it, he focused on the pleasure of being able to lie in its cool shade some day.
Only when a tree is small can you notice its growth. When it is bigger, it continues to grow, but imperceptibly.
When the body realizes there is no work to do, it throws open its doors to weariness.
It annoyed Kali that though they might have a million things wrong with their own lives, people found great pleasure in poking and prodding other people’s miseries. Couldn’t they even remember they were in a public place? What kind of pride comes from knowing that the other person does not have what one has? Does everyone have everything? Isn’t there always something lacking?
He fulfilled every wish of hers, perhaps because he had married her out of love.
There is no female without the male, and no male without the female. The world goes on only when they come together.
In the middle of the farm, on the coir-rope cot, she lay like a garland on his chest. They both felt they needed nothing; nothing could make him happier than to die at such a moment.
Even when you have spent years with some people, their real faces are revealed only when the right time comes. God knows how many faces lie concealed forever, with no opportunity to reveal themselves.
The wretched people around us do not see what a man has. They only see what he does not have.
If you are always worried about what others are going to say, you will always be in trouble.
He was now convinced that women were terrible creatures. Mother tells the son, ‘Send your wife to another man.’ The other mother is ready to take her own daughter to it. And Ponna says, ‘I will, if you are fine with it.’
‘That is the key to happiness, dear girl. Take everything lightly, you will not be assailed by worries. Do not think about who says what. It balances out if we too talk ill of them!’
Ponna felt like keeping the baby on her lap. But caste laws forbade her from touching the child. She refrained from even playing with caste children, since she feared some rebuke or comment.
Ponna knew that they felt obliged to speak against Kannaaya because they were in Ponna’s vehicle. When they would meet Kannaaya, they would talk ill of Ponna.
‘Why do you think we have and raise children? For them to grow up well? No. We do it because we seem to need it for ourselves. That is why we have children and raise them. And then in old age we complain that those children are not taking care of us. This is all plain madness . .
