“Asan, I am feeling so agitated,” Koplan cried out pitifully.

“There, there, son, don’t be afraid. It is insulting to me if you feel scared when I am here. There is a solution for everything. And I am going to teach you a way out.”

“Tell me, Asan. Tell me, please!”

“See, we are in a tight spot at the moment. This tree contains both good and evil. Like mating snakes, they lie intertwined. We have to tease apart one from the other carefully, the way a swan separates milk and water. But let me tell you one thing clearly. If we are afraid of this tree and we go away now leaving it as it is, we are done for. We need to maim it. It is like cutting off a girl’s nose just when she has come of age and is all ready for marriage.”

“Tell me what to do, and I will do it.”

“Koplan, do one thing. Cut down the branch from which that poor girl hanged herself. That will be the end of it.”

Koplan did as I asked. Within the next fifteen minutes, one of the branches cracked and fell down. The two of us picked it up and threw it into the water.

“Dawn’s breaking. We’ll invite trouble if we stay here any longer,” I said, and jumped into the pond. He jumped in right after me. Once we got ashore, he headed south and I went north.

In the end, it was I who saved the tamarind tree. If I had not acted shrewdly that day, the tamarind tree would have been cut down right to the roots.

Asan’s story was over. Something in him changed when he finished it. His face hardened, and it felt as if the bond between him and us had snapped.

“Asan,” Pappu asked, voicing what we were all thinking, “why was the fellow in such a rage to cut down the tree?”

“Pappu, imagine you have been fantasizing all your life about marrying a girl. Then if another man shows up one day and whisks her away, tell me, won’t you feel furious?”

“He and Chellathayi . . .”

“Yes! Yes! He was her maternal uncle’s son. But the poor fellow was unlucky. After all, she was no ordinary treasure. It takes a special kind of luck to get such a woman. So he was angry. And the man needed something on which he could vent out his anger and jealousy and disappointment, didn’t he? If he took it out on a fellow human being, he’d be in trouble with the law. If he beat up somebody’s cow, he’d have to answer to the owner. But here stood a lone and mute tree. So he sharpened his axe and set out to settle his score with the tree.”

“Why couldn’t you have given us this bit of information earlier?” asked Tiruvaazhi.