We report a deep search for 21 cm emission/absorption from the $z sim 0.101$ candidate damped Lyman-$alpha$ system towards PKS 0439-433, using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The spectrum shows a weak absorption feature --- at the $3.3 sigma$ level --- which yields a lower limit of 730 K on the spin temperature of the system. No HI emission was detected: the $3sigma$ upper limit on the HI mass of the absorber is $2.25 times 10^9 M_{odot}$, for a velocity spread of $sim 70$ km s$^{-1}$. The low HI mass and the high spin temperature seem to rule out the possibility that the absorber is a large gas-rich spiral galaxy.
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