Hangwoman

by K R Meera

  When he took off his glasses, the city lights fell on his eyes and made them brighter. I felt tiny nooses tightening within me.

  ‘When my mother was alive I didn’t get the chance to buy her clothes . . .’

  He looked deeply into my eyes again and smiled. Terrified for my life, I abruptly walked ahead. I had begun to fear this man deeply. His threat to fuck me at least once, the ache in my breast, the innumerable injuries he had inflicted on me in the cellar below the gallows—all these raised their hoods together menacingly. Had Sircar mama approached those four women similarly?

  The darkness of the city and its neon lights made me terribly cowardly. I who had never felt any fear even in the milling crowds of Nimtala Ghat. But standing there on a broad street in the centre of the city, I feared the huge buildings might collapse on my head and the large vehicles would smash me to the ground. The city looked like a cellar with many lights. I did not know the way back home.

  As I stood there not knowing where to go next, an aged bangle seller clad in a shirt with a tattered collar and trousers too short for him came up to me and begged, ‘Madam, come, take a look at these!’

  I had no money in my purse, but my eyes fell briefly on the bangles.

  ‘Take these bangles, Madam. Three hundred a pair. Excellent hand work, Madam. Look at these beads, they will never fall.’

  Because he hadn’t noticed my torn dupatta, he pressed a few bangles into my hand. I enjoyed the weight and the coolness of the blood-red bangles set with white and green stones.

  ‘Which bangle do you want, Chetna?’

  Sanjeev Kumar Mitra’s voice at my back ruffled me.

  ‘I don’t want any,’ I snapped as I put the bangles back on the heap.

  ‘Babu, Madam liked these. Excellent work, Babu . . . just three hundred rupees.’

  ‘Why! Are these gold bangles?’ he exclaimed rudely as he examined the bangles.

  ‘Babu, I will give them to you for two hundred and seventy-five rupees.’

  ‘Fifty, that’s it,’ he said.

  I felt quite bad. To value those bangles so low was to insult both the bangle seller and the bangles.

  ‘I don’t want them, let’s go,’ I began to hurry him.

  But Sanjeev Kumar hung on, rummaging for some more time in the bangle heap, cracking jokes with the bangle seller. ‘Okay, okay, if you don’t want them, Chetna, let us go.’

  He walked ahead in a greater hurry than me, hailed a taxi, and got into the front seat. We rode in silence. He only opened his mouth to tell the driver to park the taxi at the turning from Rabindra Sarani to Strand Road. When I opened the door and got out, he too stepped out and accompanied me to the house. There was a line of waiting vehicles on the road which nearly formed a whole wall, because the railway gate was closed. I sought a small opening in between the many different kinds of hearses to cross the road.

  ‘One minute . . .’

  He came up in the shadow of a vehicle and caught me by my arm. When his fingers pressed on my wrist where the wounds from the broken bangles were beginning to fester, it hurt. I yelped in pain

  ‘Let me make amends . . .’

  Before I could stop him, he had pushed a few bangles on to my wrists. Then, opening my palms, he kissed them, the fine bristles of his moustache gently brushing my skin. And then he went away. My palms felt scalded, then frozen. Suddenly, the circular train to the south passed, leaving the ground quivering. The vehicles waiting to go to the Ghat began to move. In the light of an ambulance, I saw my wrists. The juices in my mouth dried up. All my wounds filled with pus and ached. Blood-red bangles with green and white stones. Stolen, without a trace of conscience, in full view of the city, before our very eyes—mine and the bangle seller’s.

  I have never been able to make sense of Sanjeev Kumar Mitra. He washed away all his dirt on my body as if it were the Ganga in which he immersed himself. He made sure first that his spiritual merit was assured—and then lamented the perils that the erosion posed. What I had done to deserve such scorn, I could not fathom. Rankling insult and seething anger drove me crazy. Much later, after I had given him his rightful due, whenever I remembered this day, I felt like yelling: Tomar amaar shathe oirokom kora uchit chhilo na! You shouldn’t have done that to me!

  12

  ‘We’re old-fashioned folk, Grddha da.’

  While Manavendra Bose spoke to Father in that majestic voice that sounded like the mighty roar of a lion, I sat huddled in corner of the kitchen, listless as a bundle of rags, my body sore and aching. What’s happened to you, Thakuma and Ma asked me many times. Can’t, can’t, I told Ma. Did something get into the child in the cellar, Ma asked in a controlled whisper. Worried, Thakuma got kumkum and sacred ash from the Kali temple and the Shiva temple next to the cremation ground and smeared them on me. But something still hung heavy on my heart. It was not a heaviness which could be eased by three dips in the Ganga. And besides, I had begun to fear the Ganga that was more mud than water. It lay prone, glinting black and only too ready to let anyone dip themselves any number of times and immerse in it any kind of dirt.

  ‘Buying someone off . . . getting a contract signed . . . I’m surprised. Such bonded labour in this Bengal where the Left Front rules?’ Bose babu’s voice rose again.

  ‘Ha! Bose babu, not just now . . . haven’t you people ruled us always? The government and the party are just toys. Is there anything that won’t happen in this great country if the media decides to make it happen?’

  ‘I have never thought of the work I do in those terms,’ Bose babu’s voice was full of dejection. ‘Where is Chetna? She spoke really well on TV yesterday! What a talented child she is, Grddha da! If only you would educate her properly instead of sending her to this nonsensical—’

  ‘Bhagawan! What are you saying, Bose babu? Who’d know her if all she did was get a degree somehow, scrape through to a government job and get lucky enough to marry someone? Look who she has become today! Has she not become a symbol of strength and self-respect for the whole world?’

  ‘It will be so only if it was her own decision.’

  Father thought for a moment. ‘But you shouldn’t feel bad, Bose babu. I am still the chief hangman, of course. I won’t speak to any other channel or newspaper till Jatindranath’s hanging. Instead, just pay me ten thousand rupees, what do you say?’

  Because I couldn’t hear his reply, I got up and peeped into the tea shop through the window of the kitchen. Bose babu was staring at Father. He then began laughing, but glumly.

  ‘No, Grddha da, I am happy if this brings you some money. But our generation simply can’t stomach the idea of buying news.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? I provide you with what you need to make your paper sell, and you give me enough for my livelihood. That way don’t we both survive?’

  ‘I do this work for the passion of it. Buying happiness or recognition brings me no passion. It’s like going to Sonagachi. I am not queasy about sleeping with a girl from there. But if I go to her room, I must love her. She too must be ready to sleep with me without payment.’

  ‘Oh Bose babu, then you are done for!’ Father guffawed. ‘You are more educated than me. You are more familiar with the world. But there’s one thing—I know that the end justifies the means. No matter where she is—inside Sonagachi or inside the house—a woman serves the same purpose, right? It is just that one is called a wife. Otherwise what is the difference? This is like that. You want news. I’ll give it to you. You can run behind an ambulance or a hearse on Strand Road, take pictures in secret and make news. Or, you can simply drink the tea I serve you, record my story and publish it. Both are the same. The second is a bit easier.’

  When he got up to leave, Father got up too.

  ‘Bose babu, you must meet that boy, Sanjeev Kumar Mitra. What a bright chap! He knows how to turn something into news. It’s he who got Chetna her
job, and the moment she got it, he pulled out the stamp paper! To tell you the truth, I bowed to him!’

  Bose babu smiled at Father. ‘This is their time, isn’t it? Anyway, I heard that four infants have died in Nashipur from the influenza . . . I have to go there.’

  ‘Influenza? But they said yesterday on TV that it was some new kind of fever?’

  Bose babu laughed. ‘Aren’t those infants the offspring of the poor? They are so malnourished, even a strong wind could kill them. And your Mitra babus are not interested in signing contracts with them. Their faces aren’t good enough for TV.’

  I saw him walk ahead without waiting for Father’s reply, dragging his bad leg into the street crowded with hearses. Soon two vehicles with press stickers on them swept in. Before those who had come in the first vehicle could get out, two young men who had arrived in the second one leapt out and ran into the tea shop. The occupants of the first vehicle stood at a distance, quarrelling among themselves. Ma came up behind me at the window and asked who it was.

  ‘They haven’t come for tea, for sure . . .’ I murmured. My guess was right. Father was shaking hands with them. They spoke to Father in hushed whispers.

  ‘Oh no, that can’t be . . . it isn’t a matter of ten or twenty

  thousand . . . I have given my word, and I must honour it . . . he who can’t keep his word is as good as dead. He’s then no longer good enough to be hanged, leave alone be a hangman.’

  Father fanned himself with his gamchha and kept resisting them, hard-faced as a merchant. In between he also threw a glance at those who had come in the first vehicle and were still standing outside. They waved at him. Father excused himself for a minute, went to the end of the veranda past the window of the kitchen, and spoke with them. I heard him.

  ‘Babu, this is not about Chetna. We’ve reached an agreement about that.’

  They pleaded with Father in hushed tones. He looked at his watch and asked them to return after some time. He returned to his chair, looked at the men from the second vehicle, and said in laughing tones: ‘They say that I will do, because after all, I am the chief hangman. Chetna is only my assistant, isn’t she? And she has no experience, anyway.’

  I turned away from the kitchen window and went to Ramu da’s room. Ma had helped him lie face down. I saw the reddish welts on the fair, beautiful skin on his back. When I went closer and sat down on the bare floor, he turned his neck towards me and looked at me with interest.

  ‘Yesterday you looked really pretty on TV.’

  A smile bloomed by itself on my face.

  ‘You have become a big star!’

  He sighed deeply. ‘It’s possible that all this will die down after the twenty-fourth . . . always remember that.’

  As I struggled to smile, he fixed his eyes on my face and began to say something. Just then, I heard Kaku’s voice. My ears became sharp. He was speaking with two young men.

  ‘I’ll get all that done . . . but just one thing, make sure I get my commission.’

  Ramu da and I looked at each other.

  ‘What’s the use of getting Chetna? Isn’t Phani da the world-famous hangman still? He’s famous all over India! Not because of anything else—his hand hasn’t erred even once.’ Kaku was about to say something more, but saw me and withdrew hurriedly.

  Ramu da smiled.

  ‘So it’s selling and buying everywhere. Those who buy, they then

  sell . . . those who sell, they go on to buy . . .’

  That day, it was the vehicle which came to pick up Father that arrived first, at six o’clock. Another vehicle followed, asking for Kaku. Then, CNC’s vehicle came to pick me up. And soon we will see vehicles arriving to swoop up Thakuma, Kakima and Ma, joked Ramu da. After I reached the studio and they had done my make-up, the make-up man handed me a new outfit.

  ‘Chetna, Mitra sir said you must wear this.’

  As I was wondering what to do, Sanjeev Kumar walked in looking very impatient. Why isn’t she ready yet, he scolded the make-up man. I was reminded of the day Kaku had bought a rusty chair for the salon. He had applied a coat of red paint over its flaking blue to make it look new. All objects are obliged to submit to such a process, I thought, in bitter self-contempt. I went into the changing room with the dress. It was tea-brown with gold trimmings on the neck and sleeves. It hurt my bruised body but I felt like a new person.

  When I came out, Sanjeev Kumar cast an assessing gaze on me. ‘You look good,’ he said. ‘And you must speak a bit seriously from now on. We need something to hold the viewers’ attention till the twenty-fourth. It is impossible to shoot inside the jail. That’s why we are focusing on the hangman.’

  I did not respond.

  Someone came up and handed him a slip of paper. He looked up at me incredulously. ‘Grddha Mullick is on AVA? Is that true?’

  I remained silent.

  ‘If that’s true, then it’s Chetna’s job to make sure that their TRP isn’t higher than ours.’

  He sounded annoyed. We saw Father on a TV screen on the other side of the glass wall, speaking animatedly.

  ‘Your father has a way with words, Chetna. He can sense what the viewers want and keep them glued to the screen. I expect the same from you. You must deliver something that he can’t.’

  That was an order. Clearly, Sanjeev Kumar was uneasy. He was not bubbling with his usual confidence when he began the show.

  ‘The distance to the gallows has become even shorter, Chetna. What preparations have you made in these last few days?’

  ‘We went to the jail and examined the ropes. We found one that will suit Jatindranath. It has already been used to hang two prisoners. But it is in good condition, so we have decided to reuse it.’

  I added as much seriousness as I could to my words.

  ‘Though I did feel a bit afraid when I held it, the fact that it was handled by my father, grandfather, and his father and grandfather before him, made me feel proud too. The hangman’s job is not an easy one. There are people who get frightened at the mention of a hangman. But they forget this is also a kind of work.’

  ‘One second, Chetna—there is a viewer on the line. Let us hear what he has to say . . . Hello, may I know who is calling?’

  ‘Hello . . . this is Biswas Chakrabarti . . . I would like to ask Chetna . . .

  Madam, it is really sad that a young woman like you should sit on TV and make such speeches. Is it right for all the criminals in the world to be murdered? No! They must be turned into good human beings. We need to change them, Madam, change them . . .’

  Sanjeev Kumar Mitra turned to me. I said blank-facedly, ‘If someone can be reformed and not put to death, I welcome that. But it doesn’t work out that way many a time. If the death of a criminal can reform or even deter many others, what is wrong in that?’

  I then turned towards Sanjeev Kumar.

  ‘My dadu was fond of the rope from the Yamuna Company in Uttar Pradesh. The company is closed now. The only son of the owner fell in love with a young woman. When his father opposed their love, they tried to elope. His father brought him back home by force, locked him up, and set a bunch of strong men to keep watch on him. That evening when the father opened the door, he found his son hanging from the ceiling by a rope made by his own company!’

  I tried once again to smile and look straight into Sanjeev Kumar’s eyes as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  ‘This completely shattered the father. The company was closed for a long time. Finally, a seth from Bombay bought it. The father happened to see the seth’s wife when he went to the Grand Hotel, where the seth was staying, to sign the sale deed. It was the same girl his son had been in love with. He saw with his own eyes the agony she was suffering on account of that old love affair; he was devastated. He left immediately, not waiting even to receive the payment from the seth. Two days later, he hanged himself.’

>   Because people love drama, I paused for a moment, keeping Father’s image in my mind. Sanjeev Kumar’s eyes were fixed on my face in rapt attention. Then I let out a long sigh, and in a chilly voice, said, ‘. . . and he too had hanged himself with his own company’s rope.’

  ‘Oh! Is there any proof of this?’ Sanjeev Kumar asked.

  ‘All stories do not need proof,’ I continued, after I had gazed steadily at him in silence. ‘The company owner only knew how to make the rope; he did not know how to make a noose. After he had decided to kill himself, he came to our house to see Dadu.’

  Sanjeev Kumar’s face brightened with interest.

  ‘But Dadu and my father were not at home that day. Only Kaku was home, playing about. He is the son my thakuma had in her old age—Sukhdev Grddha Mullick. Younger than my father by twenty-three years. The company owner came in his car. His servant deposited a heavy coil of rope in our front yard. He told Thakuma that he wanted to make sure of its quality, to see whether it would make a good noose. Kaku climbed on to the coil playfully while they talked. When Thakuma turned after telling the company owner that my father had gone off to act in a play and would be late, she saw that Kaku, who was just five or six then, had already made a noose with the rope.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘The owner was very pleased. He left after showering us with many gifts. Soon we heard news of his death. Only much later did we realize that he had hanged himself with the noose that Kaku had made unwittingly.’

  ‘Did this really happen?’

  I smiled, forgetting that the man sitting in front of me was someone I desired with one corner of my heart and despised with the rest of it. The company owner really did commit suicide. That Kaku had made a fatal noose while still a child was also true. Only, it wasn’t the company owner who had died of that noose. It was also true that a merchant who suffered terribly from an incurable illness had once called Kaku into his shop, plied him with fresh jalebis and made him tie a noose in return. The crowd that gathered to see his corpse dangling from the ceiling of his shop had reached our doorstep. That was the first time the police came in search of Kaku. Thakuma always grieved that he could never tie a noose properly after that terrible ordeal.