from the disbelief on her face that she had never been spoken to in this manner. Perhaps she waited because she was certain that Chikkappa would come to her aid. That must have been Amma’s worst fear too, not that it stopped her. On that day I became convinced that it is the words of women that deeply wound other women. I’d never imagined Malati and Amma to be capable of such cruelty – they were like dogs protecting their territory. All that woman had wanted was to see Chikkappa once. But these two felled her with their words, and they kept at it as she sobbed there sitting on the ground.
