Kadmal

Kadmal is a prison parasite encountered by Lin at Arthur Road Prison. Its repeated nighttime bites make it a persistent part of prison life, contributing to the sores and physical deterioration Lin experiences during his confinement.

Appearance and First Encounter

Lin first discovers Kadmal after waking with pain in his back. He removes the insect and realizes from the blood it releases that it has fed on him while he slept. The discovery introduces a threat that is small and easily crushed, yet difficult for prisoners to escape: Kadmal is described as a scourge of the prison, and nothing in the cell prevents it from returning to feed.

Repeated Effects

The bites recur night after night. The account gives their cumulative scale: three to five in a night, around twenty in a week, and about a hundred infected sores in a month. After two months in the prison, Lin’s body is covered in small sores attributed to Kadmal. The parasite is one element of a broader decline that also includes his loss of about twelve kilos and bruising from the overseers’ canes.

Place in the Prison Narrative

Kadmal’s presence makes the prison’s confinement bodily as well as institutional: even during sleep, prisoners remain exposed to harm they cannot control. When Lin reacts angrily after crushing the parasite, a night-watch overseer strikes him with a baton, and Mahesh restrains him from retaliating. The episode places the infestation within the prison’s coercive order, where even an attempt to respond to an immediate nuisance can bring further punishment.