Hangwoman

by K R Meera

  I couldn’t help laughing. He stopped talking and turned his head away sharply. When we reached the studio, the six o’clock news bulletin had begun.

  ‘Namaskar . . . Narendra Modi will not be removed from chief ministership, says BJP President Atal Bihari Vajpayee . . . Paris gets ready for the world’s costliest wedding . . . With just three days left for the first death by hanging in India in nine years, the hangman Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick has started bargaining . . .’

  My eyes stayed on the TV screen as they applied make-up on me. The BJP president’s statement breezed by quickly. The next news item, about the preparations for the Parisian wedding in the family of the Kolkata-born billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, took more time than expected. The reporter claimed that Indians had much reason to take pride in this event, which would cost over one hundred and fifty crore dollars. My patience was wearing thin. There was a short break. Then Father’s face appeared on the screen. As the reporter announced that the chief hangman Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick had raised his demands three days before the hanging, asking for ten thousand rupees as remuneration for himself, a regular job in some government department for his daughter, and a thousand-rupee monthly pension for his son who has lost all his limbs, Father’s ancient room with the news reports on the walls, the images of Ma Kali and Mahadev—all appeared on the screen.

  Father began delivering his dialogues with a steadily glum expression shaded by cigarette smoke. ‘Arre, what are you saying? Is this a trivial matter? Human rights organizations all over the world are agitating against the death penalty. If hanging were so simple, would they take so much trouble? This is a serious affair, Babu. It is something we do with complete dedication—of mind, body, intellect. My daughter, the girl whom all of you today venerate as the symbol of the power and self-respect of Indian womanhood, Chetna Grddha Mullick . . . just think of her . . . shouldn’t she have a life after this event? Does this country have no commitment at all to our lineage which has dedicated itself to carrying out its justice and upholding its laws?’

  His words were as flawless and penetrating as those long dialogues he delivered on the jatra’s azar, but my unease continued to deepen. Soon, the reporter reappeared on the screen. ‘At the same time, Minister Padmeshwar Choudhury has made it clear that while the government had agreed to all the demands that Grddha Mullick made initially, it is not prepared to yield any more. Talks will be held in the coming days, the minister’s office announced. Our correspondent reports that this development has left the event in deep uncertainty. A demand has also been raised that Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick and Chetna Grddha Mullick be punished in case the execution keenly anticipated by the entire nation is postponed further.’

  All the faces I encountered when I came out of the make-up room, it seemed, were casting suspicious looks at me. A gallows tree was being erected on the studio floor. The background was painted in black and grey, ostensibly to remind the viewer of impending death. I suddenly felt unusually tired. It was not easy to sit in front of the gallows and speak into the camera. It reminded me of Jatindranath Banerjee. He had spent more than twelve years in prison; his skin must be terribly pale. I saw clearly, as if he were standing before my eyes, his body with its shrivelled-up flesh and protruding veins and bones. Maybe Father will take over the task of putting the noose around his neck . . . I may be spared the sight of the veins in his neck tightening, but I will have to pull the lever for sure. My right hand felt numb and frozen.

  ‘With just a few days left, there is news that your Baba has started haggling with the government. Chetna, are you sure that he will not withdraw at the last moment?’

  That’s how Sanjeev Kumar Mitra opened that day’s Hangwoman’s Diary. Instead of the usual loving and friendly expression, his face bore an aloof, suspicious look. More than anyone else, I knew that Father could not withdraw. In this matter, he was more dangerous than Mir Jafar Ali Khan. Mir Jafar was the one who had rallied back, allying with Shuja-ud Daula of Oudh and Alam Shah II of Delhi to defeat Mir Kasim and send him into exile.

  ‘Only Baba can explain his decision . . .’

  ‘But what if he withdraws? You are the assistant hangman. What would be your stand if you had to undertake the task by yourself?’

  That was a dangerous question. I kept my eyes on him while groping for an answer. ‘Isn’t it wiser to wait—till what’s to happen happens—and then take a decision?’ I tried to smile.

  ‘Does that mean that your Baba is trying to haggle?’

  ‘He does not speak nonsense.’

  ‘So you admit that it is haggling.’

  ‘Is this haggling, Sanju babu? Isn’t it linked to our livelihood?’

  ‘Chetna, this is Bharat. We have a tradition. Truth, duty, justice—all these blend together in the history of our nation. Don’t the citizens of this country have a duty to uphold it?’

  That moment I felt that Sanjeev Kumar’s anger was actually towards himself. I sighed deeply. ‘Sanju babu, in 1760, Mir Kasim would have become the emperor of India. He had stood his ground in battles against the British, but his father-in-law Mir Jafar Ali Khan allied with the British and defeated him. The vanquished Kasim was tied to a lame elephant and exiled. The elephant soon grew tired; it threw him off its back and ran away. He had no place to go. He sought refuge in Allahabad, Jodhpur, Kotwal, many other places, but was refused everywhere.’

  ‘What’s the connection here?’ His eyes narrowed.

  ‘The only person who stayed with him till the very end was my forefather Manohar Mullick’s brother Atmaram Mullick.’

  Sanjeev Kumar paused to listen.

  ‘Mir Kasim did not have even a speck of gold or a single coin left. His war wounds were infected and filled with pus. And on top of it, he suffered from dropsy. He who had lived in luxury, covered in silks and jewels in the nawab’s palace, wandered, homeless, with a swollen, blackened body, for thirteen years in the merciless summer and terrible winter . . .’

  ‘Okay, okay, but what if Grddha da decides to withdraw?’

  I tried to look steadily into his eyes. Thakuma’s angry remonstrance that everyone shamelessly stretched out their hands for whatever the buyer offered, just to stay alive for one more day, rang in my ears.

  ‘Sanju babu, there was even a song about Mir Jafar of Bengal and Mir Sadiq of Deccan who connived with the British to defeat Mir Kasim and Shuja-ud Daula. Jaffaraz Bengal Sadiqaz Dakkan, nang-e-din, nang-e-adam, nang-e-millat, nang-e-watan—Mir Jafar of Bengal and Mir Sadiq of Deccan are a disgrace to the faith, to humanity, and to the homeland.’

  Though Sanjeev Kumar tried to cut in, clearly exasperated, my words continued to flow.

  ‘Two centuries later, the British cut up this land in two before they left, and the great-grandson of Mir Jafar became the president of one of those pieces.’

  ‘Chetna . . .’

  ‘In Kotwal, one October, as the afternoon prayer rang from the mosque, Mir Kasim uttered the name of Allah and breathed his last. The last objects left with him—two worn Kashmiri shawls—had to be sold to pay for his burial . . . Do you now understand why Baba has to bargain?’

  Sanjeev Kumar Mitra fell silent instantly and stared at me vacantly. I realized with a deep breath that all this while, we had been playing with an invisible ball. I had scored a goal. As Father would have put it, time now to make a politically correct statement. I gave him a kind look and said, ‘Yes, this may be the truth, Sanju babu, but still . . . justice should be done, the law should be upheld!’

  Sanjeev Kumar recoiled for a second. He was then neither the intruder who tried to break open my body, nor the lover who tried to fondle it. Just a peddler, a hawker. He lunged forward with eyes grown tiny, nostrils flaring, at the scent of a killing.

  ‘Does that mean that if the chief hangman withdraws you will carry out the death sentence as the assistant hangman?’

  I sighed again deeply. T
hen, as the symbol of Indian womanhood and self-respect, I proclaimed: ‘Surely!’

  My tongue tingled to say, ‘One thumping line, right?’ But I did not. The gallows that was coming up behind me lacked only a hook. When I sat in the make-up room removing the rouge, in the mirror I saw him coming into the room and taking off his spectacles. Our eyes met in the mirror. It looked as though the greenish yellow tinge had crept into my eyes as well. So easy a task these days, becoming the symbol of the power and self-respect of Indian womanhood.

  25

  The ilish fish swims twelve hundred kilometres from the sea into the Padma river to lay its eggs. It then returns to the sea. Niharika, my sister, had a life somewhat like that. She was married and sent off to Bardhaman but returned, only to commit suicide. Didi carried in her large eyes the silvery sparkle of the ilish. Ma’s slim, fair body and Father’s jet-black, straight hair made her more beautiful than the Durga idols made for puja. When she was fourteen, a young man who had come to Nimtala Ghat to perform his father’s last rites fell in love with her. That had been a busy day at the Ghat. The queue formed by those who waited to register for cremation snaked past the railway track, the T-junction in front of our house, and further down. He let those who were behind him in the queue move up simply so he could keep Niharika, who was in the tea shop pouring tea into mud cups, in sight. Only when she disappeared into the house, hiding a smile, did he remember the shrouded body of his father lying in a pushcart in front of the Ghat. Days later, when she was sweeping Thakuma’s little shrine, he stood in B.K. Patel and Co., across the road from our house, looking at her and feeding the doves that were all over the roadside. He had brought a paper packet to give her. Niharika, who opened it with all the carefree ardour of her fourteen years, saw in it a little statue of Durga seated on a lion, one leg folded with its foot resting on the other knee. His Durga had Niharika’s black, winged brows, her large eyes, the same dimple which appeared on her left cheek when she smiled, and the innocent mischief of youth. Sitting in Bhojohori Manna restaurant near Star Theatre with Sanjeev Kumar Mitra and eating shorshe ilish, I could not take my eyes off the picture of Binodini Dasi that hung on the wall. She posed sitting on a chair, the left ankle over the right knee; her face radiated masculine energy and confidence, but, to me, her body seemed suffused with a feminine frustration.

  Sanjeev Kumar Mitra was feeling victorious; I had, after all, declared on Hangwoman’s Diary that I would carry out justice no matter what. When we got out of the studio, he didn’t let the taxi go to Strand Road; he wanted to walk about in the city.

  ‘Chetna, ask for anything you want and I’ll get it for you. You saved my honour today!’ he said, stroking my wrists.

  ‘Father will never forgive me,’ I whispered, my eyes on the lights which flowed past us. It was the hour when the evening markets closed down and the hawkers returned home with empty baskets. The truth was that none of us had the courage to speak against Father even inside the house. One day, after Didi and her lover had started meeting near Mayer Ghat and enjoying the breeze together, Father went into the room which she shared with Thakuma. Niharika stood leaning against the wall, smiling and eyes shining while Father went up to the little ledge in the wall, took in his hands the little statuette of Durga, and examined it.

  ‘Very pretty, uh?’

  A shy smile was about to bloom on her face at his comment. But he flung it down on the floor, hard. She straightened in shock. Like the body of Siva’s consort, Sati, which was chopped into a thousand pieces by Mahavishnu’s Sudarsana Chakra, it shattered on the floor. It was a sad sight to see the prettily painted exterior lie smashed on the ground with the stuffing of hay spilling out like exposed entrails.

  ‘See—there’s nothing but hay and black mud inside.’ Father let out an angry laugh.

  Niharika’s ever-smiling eyes rained tears.

  ‘What have you done! Sacrilege! Breaking Ma Durga’s statue, Bhagawan!’ Hearing the commotion Ma came in and started scolding Father.

  She was eight months pregnant then. Those days I was busy killing time inside Ma’s womb tying the umbilical cord into a noose.

  ‘Why, is this statue made of gold? At most, it’ll last six months—it’ll get filthy with soot and smoke and grime, and start falling apart,’ Father said with deep sarcasm.

  Niharika was still weeping.

  ‘The rope is born of the tree. The mud pot from the soil. The mud pot can’t be fashioned out of a cord; nor can a rope be woven out of mud. Aren’t you her mother? Give her some advice!’ he roared.

  Father’s ire was against the potters of Kumortuli who were first brought there from Krishnanagore by Raja Nabokrishna Deb to perform pujas for the victory of the British at Plassey. One of these potters never returned to Krishnanagore; the idol makers of Kumortuli were his offspring. Father could never think of them as his equals.

  ‘It will never work. Our traditions and theirs simply don’t mix.’

  ‘Ah, my children have such a wicked man for their father! She is just a little child! Must you weave the rope of your wretched tradition and reduce her to misery?’ Ma flew at Father.

  ‘Don’t utter another word!’ Father rolled his eyes and jumped at her. ‘Reduce the length of the rope a little, and the doctors won’t be able to tell whether it was murder or suicide!’

  He went over to Niharika who stood looking tearfully at the broken statue of Durga on the floor and stared hard into her eyes. ‘Your baba’s hand has dispatched four hundred and forty-six people. Don’t ever forget that.’

  Because she knew what that meant, Niharika sobbed soundlessly and picked up the broken pieces. Suddenly, Ma’s birthing pangs began. Unable to sit or stand, Ma wailed, squirming, hand pressed to her left hip. Her wails resounded in Strand Road all night. In the end Kaku and the neighbours took her to the hospital. The doctors had a hard time pulling me out—I was busy tying the umbilical cord around my own neck. Father came to see me at the Calcutta Medical College only at noon the next day; I was lying next to Ma on the broken iron cot which Kaku had managed to secure through a bribe. I opened my big eyes and looked at him unwaveringly. Father swelled with pride at that look.

  ‘Bhagawan! You have given me another son! Mark my words, he will carry forward our family tradition!’

  ‘Shameless fellow! Spent the night crawling all over whorehouses and has now come to write the horoscope! Hey you, see, this is not a boy, it’s a girl . . . another luckless creature, you evil man! You put her into me!’ Ma blurted out her pain, bristling with anger, not even bothering to wipe her tears.

  ‘Eh, what? Not a boy?’ Father was still unconvinced. ‘Can a girl look so unblinkingly?’

  Okay, he said, even if it’s a girl, I won’t take back the blessing I’ve given; but he was quite disappointed, really, at my birth. Mother shed bitter tears seeing my little face, regretting that she had brought into this world yet another unfortunate creature. Only Niharika was delighted by my arrival. It was I who helped her forget her shattered love with my cries and laughter and meaningless babble. It was she who bathed me, carried me, rocked me in my cradle and sang me lullabies. Till she left us when I was five, all the love and dependence I ought to have felt towards Ma, I felt towards her. The memory of her breasts, as delicate as doves, still lingers in my body. It was on one of those days soon after my birth that her young man came to call her out, and she silently carried the broken pieces of the Durga statue to the heap of rubbish near the main door, left them there, and walked back in. He never came after that. While crawling on my knees I found the single cheek with the dimple lying between the storage box and the unplastered wall, and made it my toy.

  ‘How tasty this fish is!’ Sanjeev Kumar Mitra exclaimed, separating the flesh carefully from the many delicate bones.

  I was visiting this restaurant for the first time. The tables around me were overflowing with large shrimp as broad as my palm and big pieces of
fish almost as long as my forearm.

  ‘Didn’t you hear the news? The fisheries minister said there’s going to be a bumper catch of ilish this time?’

  The minister had been responding to queries about why the price of ilish was still escalating rapidly even though its season had arrived. He explained that the delayed rainfall had resulted in the increased price of the fish. Thakuma too had seen the signs and concluded that there would be more fish this time at Diamond Harbour, Bakali and Frazergunj. We were people who could afford to get ilish just about once a year or so. I remember, right from my earliest days, Thakuma complaining loudly that eating tasty fish had become nearly impossible since the damned Farakka Bund had been built.

  ‘Ten tons of ilish come every day from Bangladesh. That’ll go up to a hundred tons by the end of the month, they say. We can make our wedding an ilish festival—what do you think, Chetna?’

  Relishing the fish curry, Sanjeev Kumar looked at me lovingly. ‘Why aren’t you eating the fish?’ He put a piece into his mouth, savoured it and continued to smile at me. ‘Can’t you farm this? Like shrimp?’

  It was I who laughed this time.

  ‘Ilish becomes ilish through its journeys. The journey from the sea to the river to spawn. And then back to the sea again.’

  ‘Ah, I know, after the eggs hatch, the little fish also begin to travel to the sea.’

  ‘If you destroy its urge to travel, there will be no ilish, and it won’t taste so good either . . .’

  He laughed aloud.

  ‘You can laugh at this only because you are a man.’ I was angry.

  He stopped laughing and raised his brows at me. ‘So there are no men among the ilish?’

  He laughed again. I did not. For me, all ilish fish were female. Like women with smooth cheeks and big breasts, as if before my very own eyes I saw them swim in search of fresh water, driven by their bodies. Thakuma grieved that Niharika’s smile too had broken to pieces along with the statue of Durga that Father had smashed, and that her dimple had disappeared. Marriage proposals began to arrive very soon. The dowry negotiations stretched endlessly; her head bowed down more and more each time. In the end, a young man from a farming family in Bardhaman, Suryaprakash Dharman, agreed to reduce the dowry somewhat. Whenever I thought of it later, I always felt that on the day of the holud koda, when she sat down to be smeared with turmeric, her face was like that of Radha abandoned by Krishna. We were to pay a dowry of five thousand rupees and five sovereigns of gold. Father had to struggle to get it together. Niharika sat expressionless, head bowed, in the silver horse-drawn carriage hired with borrowed money, the light from the petromax falling on her golden-hued face. Inside the bundle—which she carried in her flight back home from her husband’s house within a year of the wedding—I found, after her death, the shining single cheek with the dimple on it.