Hangwoman

by K R Meera

  At noon, when I was getting ready in a hurry to go to the studio while Father took his nap, I felt Ramu da’s eyes follow me suspiciously.

  ‘Any idea when the sports channels’ strike might end?’ he asked in a tired voice.

  ‘Talks are on, Ramu da,’ I said impatiently as I did my hair.

  ‘There is a sparkle on your face today.’ His voice was low.

  I tried to smile.

  He smiled. ‘Be careful. When friends become foes, and foes

  friends . . . be very careful.’

  Thakuma hobbled in, eyeing me with suspicion. ‘Be careful of what?’ She sat on the cot with the rolled-up mattress on one end.

  ‘Isn’t her wedding near, Thakuma?’

  ‘Oh, I thought you were talking about my gold coin.’

  I shrank a bit but did not reply.

  ‘I don’t trust him. He will never love this girl. I have neither seen affection or love on his face nor heard it in his voice ever.’ Ramu da’s voice was cold as it accused Sanjeev Kumar Mitra.

  ‘I too don’t want this alliance.’ Thakuma looked at us in turn, still sitting on the cot. ‘Chetu, you are a hangman’s daughter. His father and his grandfather, and all our forefathers, have been hangmen. Your bridegroom must be from a hangman’s family, for sure. If not from our lineage then maybe from some other land. A man’s strength is his courage. Better to sell your body than marry a man who lacks that . . .’ Her voice grew very sharp.

  ‘Oh, the murderers’ job, Thakuma, right?’ I tried to laugh in a flustered sort of way.

  ‘Chi! Control your tongue! The hangman does not murder, he only carries out justice. Without justice there would be no king, no government, why . . . nothing at all on this earth.’

  ‘There are many kinds of justice in the world, Thakuma. Whose justice are we carrying out?’ I asked, setting right my braids and throwing the dupatta over my shoulders.

  She looked at me wrathfully. ‘The justice of the people! Chotdi, you must have respect for your own work, and your lineage—everyone, man or woman, needs to pay that respect. People who lack it will never have inner strength. Remember that!’

  She sighed deeply and looked at both of us again. ‘I have lived beyond a hundred years for some time now. I have seen it all—poverty, terror, sorrow, the death of children, siblings and spouse . . . But I feel perfectly comfortable about life even now. Because I remember that my family is as old as this land of Bharat. That the history of this land includes even me, this ripe old woman. You shouldn’t forget the greatness of your family for a diamond ring or a couple of gold bangles, Chetu!’ she cried out shrilly.

  Afraid that Father may have woken up, I glanced at the door. I too became a character in the long, long performance that generations of our family had been enacting for some two thousand years. The desire to become someone else cannot but grant some creatures the strength to swim many thousand miles against the tide.

  27

  Most of my forefathers preferred to have the hands of the condemned man tied behind his back. Not that they desisted from all innovation; some did try to experiment occasionally. Kala Grddha Mullick, for instance, occasionally hanged the condemned without tying their hands. Once a noose was firmly strung, the hanged man’s death dance would be truly meaty entertainment only if his arms and legs were free—that was his opinion. It was Kalicharan Grddha Mullick, my grandfather, who convinced the British of the merits of the practice of tying the condemned prisoner’s arms behind his back. Till then, even in Britain, the prisoner’s hands were tied in front so that he could fold his hands and pray before death. But when the prisoners began converting that into the freedom to attack, the state had to think of another way. Thus the practice of securing both arms firmly to the body with a leather belt came to be adopted. But this had problems too. Sometimes prisoners in their death throes tried to pull their arms free and often ended up with their hands torn off their wrists. It was then that the British noticed the usefulness of my grandfather’s practice of tying the condemned man’s arms behind his back, and decided to adopt it. The British took from us not just cotton and indigo and opium; they also took our local knowledge about death, said Thakuma.

  ‘Those days, when it came to legs being tied, it was only in the case of women condemned to death. That was because of Kadambari. She was hanged by Grandfather Mosh. Struggling for her last breath, she kicked hard and her garment flew up, revealing bare legs. The watching crowd pushed its way to the foot of the gallows . . .’

  My attention wandered many times as I sat speaking to Sanjeev Kumar Mitra in Hangwoman’s Diary. How had Father reacted when he found out that I had left the house against his orders? The thought nagged me. Kadambari was sentenced to death for killing her husband while he was having sex with another woman. She had hit him hard on the head. There were two charges against her. First, she murdered her husband, her living god. Second, she had interrupted the sexual act, which made a man’s life as man meaningful. The pandits in the royal court debated for a long while about which of these was the more sinful transgression. Finally, they decided that both were equally venal and deserving of the cruellest punishment. That’s how Grandfather Mosh was summoned to hang her. He visited her the night before to carry out the sandbag test, as was the usual practice then.

  ‘Why did you do this, my daughter?’ he asked her kindly.

  ‘I loved him dearly,’ she replied, not flinching.

  ‘How did you have the heart to kill the man you loved?’

  ‘I wasn’t killing him,’ she said, ‘I was saving him from her.’

  When kind-hearted Grandfather Mosh gazed at her with as much love as he would have had for his own daughter, she requested him happily: ‘Please send me to him soonest?’

  When Thakuma ended the tale remarking that such was the intensity of Kadambari’s love for her husband, Father saw Ma who was passing that way with a tumbler of water and murmured, ‘Won’t let him be happy even in the other world . . .’

  ‘Fellows like this one must have their balls chopped off,’ she lashed back.

  ‘The hanging is very close now, Chetna. Set aside today and tomorrow for the moment. On the day after that you will be putting the noose around the neck of a condemned man for the very first time. What are your thoughts now?’

  Send me to him soonest, was what came to my tongue. My hands longed to be done with it soonest. A small noose. A red kerchief falling down. A lever being pulled. The sound of the war drum—of the planks moving apart. And then, the struggle on the rope hanging heavy.

  ‘My heart is empty, Sanju babu. The biggest hurdle in the way of delivering justice is making sure that it has indeed been delivered. All conversations are meaningless unless that is ensured.’

  ‘While the hangwoman Chetna Grddha Mullick has decided to continue her mission, let us see what is happening in this faraway village where Jatindranath Banerjee’s family lives . . .’

  On the monitor before us, suddenly appeared images of fields and mud paths, and then of a narrow lane that led up to some grass-thatched huts. In front of one of those, a wizened old man lay on a coir cot covered with a ragged blanket. A girl of fifteen or so came from a distance with a pot of water. With an adolescent’s self-consciousness about her growing body, she pulled her dupatta over her head, and disappeared into a house. A young boy with betel-stained black teeth, who might have been her brother, sat in the veranda of the house, arms stretched over his knees. The camera dwelled for some time on the tiger claw hanging from a once-black-now-bleached-nearly-white cord around his neck. Then it moved into the darkness of the kitchen where Kokila Banerjee showed how black the bottom of the rice pot was.

  ‘No! Go away! We have nothing to tell you. Vultures! Ready to sell our lives for cold cash! Go . . . go!’

  Twigs in hand, an old woman, more shrivelled up and shrunken than Thakuma, pulled the end of a much-washed,
worn sari over her head, and tried to shoo away the camera.

  ‘He would never do it . . . my son is not a criminal,’ Banerjee’s father said haltingly in his sinking voice.

  ‘Then who is the criminal?’ The reporter’s face was not to be seen, but the voice definitely belonged to Sanjeev Kumar Mitra.

  ‘How are we to know? Whoever it is, it isn’t our son.’

  ‘I don’t know if it is he who did it . . . doesn’t make a difference to me really either way. For the last ten or fifteen years, I have been struggling to feed this family. About half of the land we had is gone, sold to raise money to fight the case. These two children are growing . . . haven’t saved a paisa for them.’

  Kokila Banerjee’s voice was flat and emotionless. Her voice, I remembered, was the same as when she had broken down in the studio. The man who had accompanied her was nowhere to be seen. For some reason, I felt like seeing him again.

  ‘At the same time, jail authorities say that Jatin Banerjee has not given up hope.’

  After the reporter’s words, Sibdev babu’s gentle and pleasant face came into view. ‘Yes, he is fine. He has not yet given up hope. Even this morning when I met him, he told me, Babu, just watch, I will be free. Because his mercy petition has gone to the President. There will a response tomorrow, for sure. His hope is that the petition will be received favourably by the President.’

  ‘Sibdev babu, how is he spending his time?’

  ‘Oh, he is happy. He had a bath in the morning, ate well. Chatted with the jailers. Complained that there are too many mosquitoes in the cell at night! He is happy and very optimistic.’

  ‘All right, Chetna, let us return to the conversation. What all will you be doing once you start your work at the gallows?’ Sanjeev Kumar asked, drawing attention to the gallows tree behind us, from which a thick rope now hung through the fully finished hook.

  I too turned to look at it. It was indeed made of wood. Sanjeev Kumar got up briskly, went towards it, and began to describe its parts.

  ‘This—this is the most important part of the gallows tree. This stake has to be fixed one and a half or two feet below the ground and secured with concrete. The strength of this hook is also crucial. It is strong enough to hold a sandbag weighing one hundred and fifty kilos . . .’ When he pulled the coiled rope down, the sandbag attached to one end became visible. He then pulled the lever slowly. There was a thunderous crash as the sandbag dropped into the cellar below.

  ‘This is what really happens in the gallows. We now have a chance to see how Jatindranath Banerjee will be hanged by Chetna Grddha Mullick. The good news is that she will be with us in the studio the whole day tomorrow, morning onwards. Goodbye for now and stay tuned.’

  When Sanjeev Kumar Mitra came up to me, brimming with enthusiasm from the day’s show, I gave him a confused look.

  ‘I can’t do these things in front of the camera.’

  His face fell.

  ‘But, Chetna, it’s very important for the TRP. Such things must be presented before the audience in a serious, utterly professional way. You must do it.’

  ‘No, it’s just not right,’ I cut him short angrily. ‘And besides, I have no idea whether I will be able to make it for the show tomorrow. I came today defying Baba. I can’t predict what will happen tomorrow.’

  He laughed, not taking that very seriously. ‘Come, let’s leave now; we can decide what to do later.’

  When I came out after removing my make-up, I saw two men and a woman in the studio before the camera.

  ‘Did you recognize her? The dacoit from Chambal, Seema Parihar,’ said Sanjeev Kumar when we were out.

  I looked at him questioningly.

  ‘She’s here to act in a movie—Wounded. This is the first time a female dacoit is playing herself in a movie.’ He was very excited. ‘She’s been in Chambal since she was twenty. It’s with great difficulty that the producers of the movie managed to get her parole for forty–forty-five days. Just watch . . . such courage, such confidence!’

  On one of the TV screens I saw Seema Parihar smile broadly and declare: ‘I didn’t go away to Chambal because I wanted to go. I had no other way. My effort through this movie is to let the world know of the terrible travails of our womenfolk . . .’

  I realized then that I’d left Kadambari’s story incomplete. The fact that Kadambari’s thighs and buttocks had been exposed when the lever was pulled caused a scandal in the royal court. A rule was passed soon after that condemned folk must be dressed such that they were covered fully, and their clothes and legs should be bound together. The pandits agreed unanimously that even a condemned woman’s body must be protected from the eyes of men. And much later, the British government decided to extend that rule to men, too, just to make the hanging easier.

  When we were sitting in the taxi, Sanjeev Kumar reached out his hand and took mine.

  ‘Our Hangwoman’s Diary is going to end. What did you think of that, Chetna?’

  ‘I am not educated enough to give you an opinion.’

  Much more frustration and sadness had been expressed by my voice than I wished to reveal. It did make me feel a bit foolish. But Sanjeev Kumar gazed at me with compassion.

  ‘I am sure that is not true. Education is certainly not the measure of anyone’s intelligence. Tell me, what did you think of it?’

  ‘It opened a new world for me . . . ’

  I gazed at him, singing in a low voice:

  Koto ajnaare jaana ele tumi,

  Koto ghare dile tthayi—

  Durke korile nikat, bandhu,

  Porke karile bhai . . .

  ‘Which means?’

  I smiled.

  ‘It’s from the Gitanjali.’

  How many are the strangers that you made me meet?

  In how many homes did you make me space?

  Those who were far, you made them near

  Those who were strangers, you made them dear . . .

  He laughed aloud. ‘Very good song. And you sing well.’

  I smiled to myself, looking out of the car’s window. The next lines of the poem express worry: What will I do when I leave the old home? The taxi sped through Martin Luther Sarani that stretched from Park Street to Theatre Road. Earlier, it was called Wood Street. The Calcutta Corporation had renamed it when I was four. Allen Garden, which was on one side of the road, looked like a bushy forest. Once upon a time there used to be a triangular pond there. The corporation filled it up with rubbish, saying that it posed a danger to children. There was such a stench all around for miles that people started moving away from the locality. A woman who earned a living from taking in boarders lost her income when all of them moved out. She went to court, demanding compensation, and the corporation was ordered to pay her thirty thousand rupees. But for a very long time, no one would stay there. Whenever the awful stench of corpses filled our house, Thakuma would remember this woman. Sitting in the taxi, I wondered where her house might have been.

  ‘Let’s go home directly today,’ I said. ‘You must speak with Baba, Sanju babu. Otherwise, I may not be able to come tomorrow.’

  ‘Chi! Chetna, you should take a stronger position in this. The whole world is looking at you! This is your big chance.’

  ‘I want to keep my word, but Baba won’t let me.’

  Sanjeev Kumar was looking at me, but his glasses were so dark, I couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes. I turned my gaze outward as the traffic light turned red and innumerable child beggars made their rounds between the vehicles waiting for the signal to turn green. Running between the red rear lights of vehicles in their wet clothes, they looked like huge moths. When we reached Ashutosh Mukherjee Road, Sanjeev Kumar stopped the car and got out. He walked straight into Binod Behari Jewellers; I followed. When the merchant and the staff recognized us and welcomed us warmly, Sanjeev Kumar pushed me forward with a br
oad smile.

  ‘This pretty woman needs a pair of diamond ear studs.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ I recoiled, thoroughly flustered by his unexpected move.

  ‘I’m to decide that. Lovers in this country have always had certain special rights.’

  Before I could try to stop him, he had already begun dipping into boxes full of ear studs. There were only a few beautifully dressed men and women in the shop and they were choosing their jewellery with care. I stood there nonplussed, having entered such a shop for the very first time in my life.

  ‘Look,’ he picked a pair and gave it to the salesman, ‘something smaller in the same design.’

  When he turned towards the shelf, he whispered close to my ear: ‘The whole place is full of cameras. See those dots? They are all watching us closely. But I will steal from this shop. Want to see?’

  My blood froze.

  ‘No.’

  I looked at him, worried, wanting to run to safety. But he held me close. He too was bargaining with me, just like Father. In spite of that, my heart pounded when I thought that our days together would end soon and I would never be able to see him do it. When he picked up and put down stud after stud, my eyes were glued to his fingers. Each box had a fixed number of items and the salesman put back each after examining them carefully. Let him not be able to steal anything from this shop, I wished sincerely. Finally, we got out of the jewellers’, and were back on the footpath; I, confident that he could not have stolen anything this time. But rough fingers emboldened by victory and domination fell on my shoulder. When we crossed the road and reached a safe place, he turned my right hand palm up. ‘I kept my word!’

  True, he had. Two ear studs with tiny diamonds glinting on them sat on my palm. My voice choked.

  ‘Have no doubt, they are originals and they were stolen!’

  ‘But how?’ My throat grew parched. The two little diamonds scorched my palm when I looked at him. ‘I don’t want them . . .’