1092. Don't Touch Me!

''Your eyes touched me as they moved past me.

But your hands made me pine."

"How poetic! The lyricist Kannadasan excel again" said Lingam, after singing the above lines of a film song.

"I bet you have no idea of  what these lines mean!" taunted Sumathy.

"Of course, I do. The man tells his lover that her eyes met his. This is what he means by saying that her eyes touched him. But he pines for her hands to touch him. How am I doing?"

"Not bad! I thought you were pretending to have understood the meaning of the lines."

"So, I have indicated what I am pining for. Will you satisfy my yearning?"

"I can't, dear!"

"Why, dear?"

"The answer to your question lies in the next line of the song!"

"Is it so? What comes in the next line?" Lingam paused for a few seconds, recalling the next line of the song, and then recited it. "My modesty made me stand on a thorn!"

Sumathy nodded her head, confirming that that was the line she was referring to. 

"Why do you have to stand on a thorn? The lyricist has suggested in the next line what you should do."

As Sunathy was trying to recall the next line, Lingam sang it "Oh my garland of pearls, come near me!"

Singing the line, Lingam tried to grab her hand.

Sumathy stepped back instantly, and said angrily, "If you try to touch me again, then you have to forget me!"

Upset by Sumathy's sudden anger, Lingam retorted, "You are offended by my attempt to hold your hand! I resent your attitude. I won't try to meet you again" and went away.

Sumahy was shocked by Lingam's unexpected reaction.

After a week, when Lingam was walking on a street, he saw a group of women, walking on the other side of the street, in the opposite direction. Initially, he didn't notice who they were. Only after passing them, he turned to look at them, driven by an unconscious impulse.

He noticed that Sumathy was in that group. Sumathy also looked at him, but turned her face away. Lingam felt a current of emotions running through his body.

"You said that you would never try to meet me. Why did you come to see me, then?" asked Sumathy.

"You asked me to come!" asked Lingam.

"When did I ask you? What is this story?"

"Did you not look at me, when I was waking on the street?"

"We can't help looking at people, who walk past us on the street, can we?"

"But your gaze was not a routine gaze. Your furtive gaze, emanating  the corner of your eye, was short, lasting just for a second. But it was a gaze that had the power to catapult me into the air and carry me. That's why I rushed here to meet you. In this process, I also learnt a lessn."

"What is that lesson?"

"The other day, I tried to touch you thinking that touching you would give me great pleasure. But today, I realized what great pleasure I could get from your gaze itself. So, I have decided to defer my pleasure of touching you to the period after our marriage."

"Get lost!" said Sumathy, in mock anger.

"My modesty made me stand on a thorn!" sang Lingam.

"Be careful to ensure that you don't jump to the next line!" said Sumathy, with a smug on her face.

Thirukkural
Section 3

Love

Chapter 110
Reading the Cues

Verse 1092 (in Tamil):
kaN kaLavu koLLum siRu nOkkam kAmaththil
sembAgam anRu peridhu.

Meaning:

The furtive glance, that gleams one instant bright, is more than half of love's supreme delight.

(This is the English version of the Tamil story 'pArvai onRE pOdhumE' by the same author.)

Verse 1093
Verse 1091