Hangwoman

by K R Meera

  Father paused, lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke. Sanjeev Kumar Mitra listened in rapt attention. But even so, he threw troubling glances at me.

  ‘The very next day, Marwood approached the jail authorities with his discovery. He was not an executioner. But he insisted that he be allowed to try this method. The authorities agreed. Thus Marwood executed a criminal using this new method. It was my grandfather who calculated his weight. One hundred and twenty-seven pounds, he said at a single glance. It was Grandfather who measured out the rope and prepared the noose. All over in just one minute! The British were very happy. They appointed Marwood executioner. He then carried out some two hundred or more hangings . . .’

  ‘And what about Jnananatha Grddha Mullick?’

  ‘Grandfather got close with a white woman; they had a relationship. But she didn’t love him. She went after Marwood. My ancestor returned, his heart broken. His father and older brother were working as hangmen. But soon his older brother got tuberculosis. They took him to Varanasi and left him there to die. It was expected that my forefather would take up the family profession when they returned. But he had changed totally. The feeling that Marwood had usurped something that rightfully belonged to him was damaging. He tried to find refuge in opium. Too much opium turned him mad. But no matter how mad he was, in front of the gallows, he was totally professional, Babu, totally professional!’

  ‘He was mad? What do you mean?’

  ‘He believed that he was trying to solve a very difficult mathematical problem. He filled all the walls with charcoal jottings. Some of those jottings were there . . . until very recently . . . on the wall behind the gallows at Alipore, did you know? My father Phanibhusan Grddha Mullick could recognize his hand . . .’

  Father smiled and drew smoke from his cigarette.

  ‘I hope you got what I meant when I said “my father Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick”? This should be printed as not my words, but Chetna’s.’

  ‘Ha! You are impossible, Grddha babu!’ Sanjeev Kumar Mitra laughed out aloud.

  With faux ruefulness that asked oh-did-you-notice-it-only-now, Father filled his cheeks with cigarette smoke and looked at him. Letting it out after a moment, he smiled slowly.

  ‘So, Chetna, what do you think of your father, Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick?’

  I leaned against the wall uneasily. In truth, I had enough sense of humour to like that question and the playfulness with which he put it to me. But all I could feel was a terrible tension. Somehow I felt that he had been attacking my body all that while in some horrible manner. I found it hard to forgive him for defiling the secrets of my body with filthy looks and dirty words, secrets which I had kept safe for someone who would desire and respect me deeply. But I was intensely attracted to him as well. The reason for that was clear. There was something in him that was vibrantly alive. In his smile, his conversation, even in that green-tinted glance. The hangman’s blood that flowed in my veins yearned for the vitality of his soul.

  ‘My father Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick . . .’ Father began to recite dramatically the words I was to speak. ‘I adore my father Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick. My father is my God.’

  Father looked at me and smiled half mischievously, half in doubt.

  ‘Why, Chetu, isn’t it true?’

  I had to smile, involuntarily, at that moment. I felt a sudden rush of affection for him, as if towards a child. I saw it then, these are the things he secretly desired! God, indeed! Poor Father!

  ‘Ah . . . Mitra babu, keep recording. That is, I have no word beyond my baba’s. Because he is now eighty-eight years old. He became the official hangman of the province of Bengal at the age of twenty. From then, he chanced to work in many parts of the country. We cannot imagine anyone more skilled than him at this work. It is important to sustain law and justice in this world. There can be no nation if law and justice do not prevail. No government. None of us will exist. The hangman is the last link in the chain of duty performed by the police and the army. The hangman is not a hired killer. He is a responsible officer of the government. The tahsildar may take away a farmer’s land for the sake of the nation—to build a road or a school. The hangman’s job is similar. He takes away a person’s life for the sake of the nation. He delivers justice . . .’

  Father puffed hard at his cigarette and asked Sanjeev Kumar with his eyes: how did that sound?

  ‘But then, Chetna, you are young. If you continue in this job, who will marry you?’

  Suddenly, I spoke. ‘I need someone who loves me, not someone who loves my job.’

  Sanjeev Kumar Mitra sent me a piercing look. ‘Can someone’s personality be separated from the work he does?’

  I had no answer. He then switched his handycam off, got up and held his hand out to Father. Father took his hand, not knowing why it had been extended. Keeping his eyes on me, Sanjeev Kumar said, ‘Grddha babu, when this bustle is over, if you have no objections, give Chetna to me . . . as my wife . . .’

  Father was stunned. I stood still, inert. Very slowly, my heart began to smoulder. Tears followed soon. My heart had expected him to make that demand someday. But I was so inexperienced, so immature those days; I could not see that he asked for me only because he had sworn to fuck me at least once.

  Father’s eyes filled with tears. Like all men swamped by unexpected joy, he had turned completely weak. He leapt up, came close and looked again and again at Sanjeev Kumar Mitra and me. His eyes moved towards the images of Ma Kali and Grandfather fixed on the wall; his hands were folded in prayer. Then, like a father in a TV serial, he turned his palms up towards me. ‘Here she is, Mitra babu, take your woman . . .’

  Wiping his eyes on the ragged gamchha that lay on his shoulder, Father suddenly went out of the room. Later, Ma told me that he wept aloud in the kitchen. Sanjeev Kumar Mitra and I were left alone in the room. Someone twisted a silken rope tightly around my body. The delicate, soft threads suffocated and tickled me at the same time. He came up and stood right in front of me, fixing me with a stare. His head turned from side to side, making an assessment. Then, with complete ease, he grabbed my left breast and squeezed it hard. Before I knew what was happening, he hissed, ‘That camera was worth many lakh rupees!’

  The sourness pierced my bones and whizzed through my body again. When I thrust off his hand and fled into Ramu da’s room, I was panting hard. The sight of his legless armless body covered with a torn sheet gave me some relief. After all, this man could not, even if he wished to, hurt a woman who loved him.

  The first heavy shower of the year came down that night. A stench more intense than that of the funeral pyre pierced the nostrils. The sounds outside were drowned by the rain’s steady drone. The garbage heaps in the narrow by-lanes began to rot and stink. My heart hung heavy like a soggy, torn sack. I remembered, for no reason, the young girl who had come from the village to the city to work in a house, and had hanged herself. When I rolled out my mat by the window and lay down on Ma’s torn sari, drops of rain kept falling on my sweaty forehead. I was twenty-two; I knew little of the world except that the touch of an unloving male was rough and that his stink was unbearable. Maruti Prasad’s touch was ravenous. Sanjeev Kumar Mitra’s was pervaded by the arrogance of a ravishing ‘I’. I can forgive greed. But not that ‘I’ bent on conquest. Maybe it was such an experience which drove away that seventeen-year-old girl from life. I flung aside my blanket. Raindrops, hard as stones, hit my face. I could find no man about whom I could say: This is my God. Everyone demanded worship. Not one could prove he deserved it. Though I tightened the noose around my heart, hot tears mingled with the raindrops and trickled down my face. My left breast throbbed painfully as if it were filled with pus; I burned—and resolved to myself: I will measure out his rope accurately. Not an inch more. Not an inch less. I too want to have him. At least once.

  6

  Father came out of his room the next morning singing a song
sung by Bibek, played by Abhi Bhushan Bhattacharya, in the jatra Surat Udhaar. It went

  March ahead looking into your own heart

  This is the ripe moment.

  Bibek represented the conscience of the characters in the story. It entered and exited at will, into and out of heaven and hell, the royal court and cremation ground, the bedroom and temple, as a wild force—with wild tresses and tangled beard, naked feet and a long robe in white, black or ochre, eyes touched with madness. Thakuma boasted that it had been Grandfather Kalicharan who conceived of such a figure in jatra performances. He was the greatest of the artistes born in our family.

  That day Father guzzled liquor till and even after Sanjeev Kumar left our place. He grabbed the coins Ma had collected selling tea since morning. They had a scuffle over that, followed by lots of screaming. Father slapped Ma hard. Though I tried to get in the way, his hand fell heavily on the bridge of her nose; blood spurted out of it. I ran to get some ice from the Ghat. Pushing past the crowd and making my way through the row of petty shops lined up opposite the ghat, I found the ice seller, Nabanit da. He was selling ice to children who had come for a funeral. Running back with two sticks of coloured ice, I slammed against a rusted iron cart. It tilted to one side. Suddenly, Sircar mama’s memory sprang up. The corpse which lay in the cart, its face uncovered, began to slide off. As I stood frozen and stunned, the cart driver, clad in a torn lungi, pulled it back in, scolding me. I apologized and ran home. The puja had begun in Hemant Mullick’s Kali temple. It was right on the road, just half a metre wide. Apart from Ma Kali and Hemu da, it could barely accommodate a cock or a goat. There was an ancient guillotine in front of the idol. A wooden one, carved in the shape of a pot. Once the head of the animal is shoved into the small circle, it stands still, ready for slaughter. Hemu da would sever the head with a single blow. People yelling at the sight of the sacrifice blocked my way again. Ma was up again by the time I got back home. She had begun to clean fish for dinner. I was exhausted. I wiped the sweat off my face and sat down cross-legged on the floor next to Champa who was studying. We heard Kakima scolding Champa’s sister Rari somewhere outside. Champa asked me something; I snapped at her, irritated. She went off in a huff.

  Ramu da gave me a kindly look. ‘Where is he from?’ he asked.

  I realized only then that Sanjeev Kumar Mitra had already arrived. The expression on my face changed a little. Father called me to his room just then. My hair stood on end. I felt thorns piercing my flesh at the very thought of being in the same space as him.

  ‘Chotdi, come, let me tell you . . .’ Father clapped his hands in high spirits, summoning me.

  Sanjeev Kumar Mitra watched me with a serious expression. The blood rushed into my face. His light-green shirt was reflected in his darkish glasses. Strands of hair kept falling onto his forehead every now and then. It was clear, from the way he sat and his very scent, that this poor, musty room filled with the damp of wet clothes did not suit him.

  ‘He’s complaining that you haven’t said anything firm about the marriage proposal,’ Father said, overcome with joy.

  ‘If you don’t like me, Chetna, please say so.’

  Sanjeev Kumar shot a glance through the gap made by his glasses when they slipped down his nose; it was a glance whose meaning only I could decipher. I pretended not to notice.

  ‘Don’t worry, Sanju babu, she likes you. My daughter doesn’t talk much. She’s been like that since she was a child.’

  Father was now slurring and swaying.

  ‘Chetu, when we go to see the IG babu, they may interview you . . .

  that is, ask you questions about the job . . . for example, whether you know how to make a noose . . .’

  Father fished out a piece of rope from under his cot and held it out to me. I took it without raising my head. Not looking at Sanjeev Kumar Mitra, I fashioned a single-loop noose in a trice.

  Father was triumphant; he displayed it before Sanjeev Kumar Mitra. ‘Look, look, Sanju babu! How well she makes it . . . didn’t I tell you? Our lineage is as old as this land of Bharat . . . this courage, this strength, this sense of justice, all of it is in our blood . . .’

  Father taught me to prepare the rope while Sanjeev Kumar watched. He showed me how to make the noose and smoothen its circle with the flesh of a banana, ghee and soap. I picked it up instantly. Like Father said, such things were in our blood. Sanjeev Kumar Mitra wore the noose I had prepared around his neck and looked at me. ‘Want to try?’ he asked me sarcastically.

  Maruti Prasad Yadav’s face rose before me. My hands tingled.

  ‘You are six feet tall . . . You’ll need a rope that is eight feet and two inches long . . . that rope is for someone who is five feet and ten inches tall.’

  My voice was calm. Sanjeev Kumar Mitra looked at me as if he couldn’t believe his ears. ‘What’s the problem if you use this rope to hang me?’

  ‘It’ll be a waste of time.’

  ‘Okay, how much rope would you need, Chetna?’

  I fell silent for a moment. I was the same height as Jatindranath Banerjee. So this rope would have suited me as well.

  ‘Sanju babu, in the olden days, preparing the noose was itself a big ceremony. The very day the rope arrived, the Sakti puja would begin. Once smoothened with banana, ghee and soap, it would be safely locked away in a big wooden box. Otherwise, it might be nibbled upon by a rat! This happened in Aurangzeb’s time, I’ve heard Father say. The rat took the rope. After the British came, an iron box was procured to keep it safe. Nowadays, the rope is kept in the custody of the government. We go to the prison the day before and examine it. Then we come back home, perform the puja and return there . . .’

  Respect for the prospective son-in-law was already showing in Father’s voice. A victorious expression shone in Sanjeev Kumar’s eyes. All the smiles he bestowed on me were contemptuous smirks. I wished dearly to return such a smirk. But couldn’t, however much I tried. My heart struggled without breath like a condemned man hung on a rope too short. The agony was prolonged: I wished I would die soon, but continued to stay conscious.

  ‘The murders in the old days were of many sorts. But Sanju babu, this is the most decent form of penalty in the world. It is the hangman’s skill that makes it decent. Chetu, I am saying this so that you’ll listen too. After the condemned has been brought out of the cell, don’t waste a single moment until everything’s over. Always remember, we are not about to hang a cock or a snake . . . it is a human being. He knows he has just moments to live. He’ll think, I’ll be alive for another ten minutes. But our ability lies in killing him in five seconds. Five seconds . . . one, two, three, four, five . . . it must be over by then. My dadu Kalicharan Mullick did not need half a second to finish the job. His noose was that accurate!’

  ‘What about you, Grddha babu?’

  Father laughed.

  ‘From half to one minute. Only once did I need more time. But that was under the British . . .’

  Father was silent for a moment. Then he ordered me: ‘Chetu, go inside . . . come out only when I call.’

  I left. His voice drifted from inside the room. ‘I don’t like to remember that incident, Sanju babu. Because, before I became a hangman, I was a singer and actor. I had a beloved those days. I sent Chetna away because I don’t want her to hear about that.’

  The bottle scraped the floor. Father had begun to drink again.

  ‘Her name was Ashapurna. In the jatra in which we were performing, Shashti ki Shanti, she was the singer and I the villain. The hero was the actor Satyapal Chakrabarti. Very handsome! When he came on stage the entire audience would be thrilled and an isshhh . . . of pleasure could be heard. He was a show all by himself!’

  Father had already begun to shine in villainous roles at the age of sixteen, with his bulging eyes and protruding cheeks. The pinkish white hero and the dark-skinned villain filled the stage. Father fell in lo
ve with Ashapurna. Ashapurna fell in love with Satyapal. Whenever he could, Satyapal put Father down; in those days Father dreamt constantly of becoming a celebrated artist. Satyapal persuaded Ashapurna to live with him. Heartbroken, Father left the drama company and went off to Bombay for some time. After two years, another troupe in Kolkata invited him to play the hero. And then, when he was returning from a performance, he met Ashapurna again. She had become a prostitute.

  I could distinctly hear Father break into sobs as he ended the story.

  ‘I loved her endlessly, Mitra babu. When we met again, she broke into tears and begged me to forgive her. I was ready to accept her even then. But she would not let me. Even as I watched, she went off with a cart driver for her daily bread. Mitra babu, how could a young man of eighteen have borne this agony?’

  Father laughed and wept. I was dumbstruck.

  ‘When did you become a hangman, Grddha babu?’

  ‘When I was with the drama troupe, my father was assisted by one of my brothers. He died of jaundice. Another brother, Nagbhushan Mullick, had been dismissed from service by the British government. That’s another story . . . I’ll tell you some other time. Baba called me when he had no assistant. Those days, children weren’t bold enough to disobey their parents. I went with him, for the first time, to execute a death sentence. I cursed my father and God when I set out. Those days, there would be four or five hangings the same day. Remember, this was the year 1934–35. I cursed myself as I accompanied Father to the prison. He ordered, Phani, do this, do that. I obeyed him. By then, the condemned man was brought. “Tie his hands, Phani,” said Father. I caught hold of the man’s hands and tied them up. When Father went up to him to put the hood on his face, he suddenly turned his head, looked at me and called, Phanibhushan! I was shocked. Sanju babu, do you know who that was? None other than Satyapal Chakrabarti!’