Hangwoman

by K R Meera

  ‘Okay, let me help you understand. He came by ship. He came to purchase stocks of rice for Ceylon. Around 1773 or ’74.’

  He looked at me, even more puzzled. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘When he arrived with gold coins jingling in his waist pouch, there was a river here called the Adi Ganga.’ I sighed heavily. ‘Bahula was swept away by that river.’

  ‘Bahula? Who?’

  ‘Lakshminder was her husband.’

  ‘I can’t make head or tail of this!’

  ‘You know no history, no legend!’ I was scornful.

  Bahula’s husband Lakshminder was the son of Chand Sadagar, who was an ardent Shaivite. He worshipped only Shiva and Durga, and ignored Manasa. Rather, he reviled her as the deity of the untouchables and tribals. Furious, Manasa vowed to make him bow to her. Six of his sons died of snakebite. His trading ventures collapsed. Despite these misfortunes, Sadagar was determined to bow only to Shiva. He boarded a ship to expand his trade to other lands. When the ship returned with loads of wealth, Manasa unleashed a terrible tempest and lashing rain. Durga went to his rescue; but Manasa urged her father to call her back. Sadagar’s ship sank. Manasa let him swim to shore where her devotee, Chandraketu, lived. He too urged Sadagar to adore Manasa, but Sadagar was adamant that he would rather die than bow before a daughter abandoned by her father and a wife forsaken by her husband. He had now lost all his material wealth and became a beggar. Manasa thought of a new way to make him submit. She let him reach home and begin efforts to rebuild his shattered life. Then, at her suggestion, Krishna’s grandson Aniruddha and his love Usha left Heaven to be reborn as Sadagar’s son Lakshminder and his friend’s daughter Bahula. They grew up, fell in love, and their families agreed to the match. However, when they examined Lakshminder’s horoscope, it was revealed that he would die of snakebite on his wedding night. The two families fell into deep sadness. Many well-wishers advised Sadagar to pray to Devi Manasa, but he refused. Instead, he went ahead with the wedding and built a bridal chamber which no snake could enter. But a snake did enter, and the groom did die of snakebite. In those days, those who died of snake venom were neither cremated nor buried but placed on a bamboo litter and set afloat on the Ganga. Unable to see her beloved go thus, Bahula too jumped into the river. For six whole months, they floated on the river, the young girl and the decaying body, from village to village, until they reached the village of Manasa’s foster mother Netra. When she saw the young girl accompanying the decaying corpse, she swam into the river and brought them ashore. At her request, Manasa appeared to Bahula and promised to give Lakshminder back his life if Sadagar became her devotee. Sadagar had to admit defeat before his daughter-in-law’s entreaties and his son came back to life. He began to worship Devi Manasa on the fifth night of the new moon in the month of Sravan. But he turned his face away when he bowed before the inferior-born goddess of uncertain paternity, and when he offered flowers, he always did so with his left hand.

  Sanjeev Kumar was pacing the room, totally lost. The training he had received from this world as a man reminded him that coitus was important in such circumstances. But he was afraid to take a woman who had walked into his bedroom of her own free will. When the forty-two-year-old man who came to buy rice with gold jingling in the pouch at his waist got off the ship in Kolkata in 1773, the Adi Ganga in front of Kalighat was not the pond it is today. It was a youthful river full of vitality. It broke with playful sounds against banks thick with the avid black of alluvium. Bamboo rafts, sailboats and canoes spread on its bosom. Human beings swimming in it and offering oblations made it come alive.

  ‘Do you know what happened to your ancestor?’ I asked.

  He tried to smile. ‘Who knows? I’ve heard that my grandfather came here in search of him. Or was it my grandfather’s father? Don’t know . . .’

  ‘But I do.’

  Disbelief was writ large on Sanjeev Kumar’s face.

  ‘He was hanged.’

  He looked as if he had been slapped. A fantastic serpent, blue-black as fate itself, slithered through the cells of my body, making them burst into a pleasurable tingle like grass sprouting from soil.

  ‘Wh-what for?’ he stuttered.

  ‘For robbery. For stealing gold from a merchant from Talashery.’

  ‘Chi! Utter rubbish! Gross lie! Don’t vent your anger towards me with this nonsense, Chetna!’

  ‘It’s the truth!’

  ‘How the hell do you know?’

  ‘Of all the many thousands dispatched by my ancestors, only he came back to tell us what death feels like.’

  I wanted to laugh. He looked at me incredulously. I liked his face at that moment. There is great bliss—even in these days of democracy—in receiving devotion, even if it is expressed with a turned face, and in receiving worship, even if it is performed with the left hand.

  42

  The appropriate reply to Sanjeev Kumar’s question—how come you Grddha Mullicks alone store up such frayed, old memories—was surely in the pamphlet that George Fernandes, that hunter who was eventually trapped in his own net, brought out on 15 August 1975 while he was still underground. He wrote, if three people each tell the same story to just three others, in eighteen operations, taking, say, eighteen hours, 38,74,20,489 people will have heard it. Yes, in other words, the entire adult population of the country. Unknowingly, Father, Thakuma and I propagated this formula of ‘three raised to the power of eighteen’. We exerted ourselves to swim towards our origins so that we may survive. If each memory would lay three eggs and the three memories hatch into three philosophies, the lives of the entire adult population in this world would become eternal through the equalizing wisdom of death and desire, like the river, the sea, the earth and the sky. As I lay back on his red-covered bed with a freedom I did not actually enjoy, I stirred with unease, thinking of the shattering of the networks of three, of words rendered infertile, of words castrated, and of the earth turning barren as blood flowed over it. I felt nothing but derision for Sanjeev Kumar.

  But it was useless to blame him. Narayanan, who attained considerable knowledge in Sanskrit in Nagercoil, was penniless. He went to Talashery and married the daughter of a wealthy rice merchant and thus became rich. The tale of what took place after Narayanan boarded the ship to Kolkata would sound unbelievable to people like Sanjeev Kumar. Only those who know of eighteenth-century Chitpur and Kolkata are capable of understanding and appreciating it. How could he imagine the adolescence of Chitpur—the gushing Adi Ganga, the Hooghly, the royal tigers that came out of the Sunderbans to sunbathe, the slaves auctioned off at Ahrtala and Nimtala, the little huts thatched with bamboo, like grey mould on white bread? Behind the grand mansions that lined Chitpur’s main road, aptly described as its major artery, tiny paths twisted and turned like small veins, uniting and separating, giving life to liquor dens, dancing halls and brothels, and then slithering like snakes towards the banks of the Ganga. Like Devi Manasa, the city made them her ornament and weapon. What tests may have awaited the scholar from a distant land?

  ‘When my forefather set off for Kolkata, his son was but a young boy. He went there in search of his father after many years, but could not find any information. If he had been hanged as you say, wouldn’t he have gleaned the news from someone?’

  There was a note of accusation in his voice.

  ‘Hangings were very frequent those days. Every day almost, corpses hung on gallows set up in market places. Many a time my ancestors had to split the work among themselves to ensure that justice was being done all over town.’

  I ran my fingers along the shiny smoothness of the bed. Men are like tortoises, with hard shells and soft bodies inside. When the shell breaks the helpless creature inside trembles in fear. I was elated at being able to hurt him so. But what I had said was the truth. There used to be gallows trees in the present-day Bara Bazar, on Fancy Lane behind the Raj Bhavan and the junction near t
he Lal Bazar police station where Bentinck Street and Chitpur Road meet. Many were the bodies that were hanged on these gallows, concrete manifestations of the kind of justice handed out by my ancestors.

  ‘No, no, impossible! You can’t be talking about my ancestor—he was a great scholar and thinker. He must have gone to Kashi or Gaya and attained moksha or nirvana there,’ he protested further, having thought for a while.

  ‘Just as hanging is my family profession, stealing is yours, Sanju babu. No wonder caste is such a glaring reality in this country even now.’

  I threw yet another noose around his neck with a beatific smile. He struggled hard in it, not able to even think of fucking me at least once though I was there, in his bedroom, unarmed and helpless. The pleasure Pingalakeshini had felt dawned on me now. Sanjeev Kumar paced the room, totally disturbed and arguing with himself.

  ‘So, even if we concede he was hanged to death, it can’t have been for robbery. Maybe it was for murder. Yes, there’s a chance that it happened that way. Suppose someone attacked him—yes, he must have retaliated in self-defence—and the aggressor must have lost his life. Or let’s suppose he did steal. But he wouldn’t have been hanged for that! What you say has too many holes in it, Chetna!’

  I laughed. ‘When you steal without the owner’s knowledge, you steal only his wealth. But when you steal after threatening him with a gun or knife, you steal not only his wealth but also his sense of security, and his faith in other human beings!’

  ‘You are raving mad!’ He lost his temper. ‘Another word about my ancestor, Chetna, and I’ll lose control!’

  That was a truly honest statement. So I was not provoked. For those who have nothing to hold on to, only the greatness of their ancestors remains.

  ‘It is easy to create darkness by shutting one’s eyes, Sanju babu. But what has happened has happened. I can’t say if he really stole or not. But he was arrested for robbery; there are documents to prove that.’

  Once, the day before two Musalmans, two Europeans and four Bengalis were to be hanged for robbery, my ancestor Dharmaraja Grddha Mullick’s paternal uncle Satyanatha Grddha Mullick dreamt during his siesta that the noose around the condemned man’s neck would not tighten. After offering the puja and the sacrifice to Ma Kali at night, he set out from home, handing over three of the six neatly coiled and readied hangman’s ropes to his younger brother Jagannatha and carrying the other three himself. The two travelled in the horse carriage sent by the deputy commisioner of police in the dead of night. The carriage ran fast through the area then called Shimulia (and later called Shimla) for its abundance of Shimul trees, bells and hooves resounding. There was a sound of rippling water, and then, suddenly, someone jumped in the way of the carriage with a blood-curdling scream. Hand me all your belongings and run for your life, he ordered. Grandfather Satyanatha picked up the burning torch that hung over the wheels of the carriage and held it up to the intruder’s face. He was still brandishing the sword that was wet with blood and pressing down the wheel with a single muscular leg.

  Grandfather spoke kindly to him. ‘Chorer mayer kanna, ugar baaro noi, phukar baaro noi . . .’

  The attacker was a bit taken aback, but rebounded, pressing the sword against Grandfather’s neck and yelling: ‘Making fun of me?

  Me . . . who set out after a blood sacrifice to Chiteswari?’

  ‘Son, do not tell stories of animal sacrifice to the hangman!’ Grandfather Satyanatha smiled. Jagannatha Grddha Mullick, who had been crouching inside, quickly tied a noose and threw it around the robber’s neck, shouting to the driver to take the horses forward. The horses bolted like lightning and the dacoit was dragged all the way down. ‘Stop, stop,’ called Grandfather Satyanatha. The driver stopped. Grandfather hopped down, pulled out the sharp knife he carried at his waist, and cut through the noose around the man’s neck, setting him free. His pulse had stopped. Grandfather massaged his neck and beat his chest to revive him. Helping him up, he gave the dacoit a drink of water, made sure that he could walk, and then continued on his journey. But in the melee, he had lost the copy of the chief magistrate’s order confirming the death sentence. The policeman guarding the gallows had to ride to the chief magistrate and inform him of the loss. The chief magistrate had been getting ready to witness the hanging with his family; the news made him very angry. Slapping the policeman hard, he rushed to his desk and, taking his quill, rewrote the order from memory: ‘On the tenth of June, let them be taken from jail to the place of execution, which place the sheriff directed to prepare as near the house of the slain victim Sushil Mohan, as may be convenient, and there let the said Madhu Datta, Mir Ali Muhammad, Anderson, Healy, Ishaq, Subrato Datta and every one of them be hanged by the neck . . .’

  Sanjeev Kumar kept staring at me. The contempt and scepticism on his face made me yawn. I got up, bored.

  ‘You had requested, right, that you want to fuck me at least once? I came so that you could do that. But you are only capable of saying such things, not doing them. Like Jatindranath’s noose, this too keeps becoming longer and longer. You are never going to fuck me!’

  I took out the purse from my cloth bag and looked for change.

  ‘It’s hard to get out of this place after dark, especially for a well-formed young woman like you.’

  I gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Why? Do some real men come to the red street occasionally?’

  His face revealed that each of my words wounded him. Pretending not to hear, Sanjeev Kumar repeated, stubborn as a child: ‘No, my ancestor was a rich man. He had no motive to steal . . .’

  ‘Did you steal Thakuma’s coin and those diamond studs because you were in need?’

  He wasn’t even listening. ‘This city makes the rich poor, and the poor rich. All in a trice.’

  Thakuma had so many stories of European sailors arriving with fat purses of gold and ending up in the Maidan, forced to sleep in the open, suffering mosquito bites. There even used to be a big gang of white thieves in the city—‘sahib chor’. My Grandfather Satyanatha hanged to death first the English sahibs, then the Bengalis, and finally, the Musalmans. When he put the noose on the last Musalman’s neck, the condemned man said in a failing voice: ‘If you hang me, the sin will pursue you till the Last Judgement. I am innocent.’

  My ancestor’s hands shook. The rope was actually shorter than what was needed. It was also frayed, having been dragged along the road. But he closed his eyes, thought of Ma Kali and Bhagawan Mahadev, and fixed the noose. The man had been made to stand on a high stool. The magistrate dropped the red kerchief when it was time. Grandfather pulled the stool away. The man dangled in the air, struggling. The crowd which had witnessed the other five hangings shouted in fascination at the sight. His neck bones must be broken, my forefather thought. But just then, to the great surprise of everyone, the rope snapped and the man fell to the ground. There was a moment’s silence, and then everyone rushed to pick him up. Grandfather slid the noose off his neck. He screamed and writhed, and was then still.

  That day Grandfather Satyanatha also had to punish two slave girls who had run away from their master’s home. They were little girls, sold in the monthly slave market, which used to be just next door from our house in Nimtala Ghat. Their master was a merchant. The judge awarded them fifteen lashes each. When the cane fell on their thin black backs, drops of blood spattered on his face. The sweeper who had sold empty bottles thrown away from her master’s house was also given the same punishment. She and the shopkeeper who had bought those bottles were both whipped and paraded around town tied behind an ox cart. But all the hallowed justice that Grandfather Satyanatha meted out that day was rendered meaningless because of the snapped rope. Upset that he had brought infamy to the goddess of justice, he went to the Chiteswari temple, fasted there for a day and night, and meditated. The dacoits and thieves and robbers who had come there to offer animal sacrifice ran away, seeing him. When daylight spread, he ma
de his way home through the thick foliage that surrounded the temple, watching out for snakes while making a vow to Devi Manasa. All of a sudden, he found his way barred by a robust young man with a bluish mark on his neck, like Bhagawan Mahadev himself. He held a piece of paper and began to read aloud from it: ‘On the tenth of June, let them be taken from jail to the place of execution, which place the sheriff directed to prepare as near the house of the slain victim . . .’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Grandfather Satyanatha, deeply surprised.

  ‘Naren dakat.’

  ‘I’ve heard of you—so you are the one who gives away stolen wealth to the poor.’

  ‘All lands need some such people, otherwise the land will be ruined.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Yesterday’s incident . . .’

  ‘Work, my son, is God.’

  ‘Work, Mahashai, is indeed God.’ He folded his palms.

  ‘I feared that you had died . . .’ Grandfather said looking at Naren dakat’s body, bruised black from being dragged on the road.

  ‘The fear of death? In a hangman?’

  ‘Son, not one of those who have been sent off with nooses made by us Grddha Mullicks have come back to tell us how it felt.’

  ‘I have come. I will come again.’

  There are two views about how our Chitpur got its name. Some say that it was named after Chiteswari Devi; others say that there was a dacoit who lived here, Chitte dakat. Naren dakat set out to rob after offering a human sacrifice at the Chiteswari temple. Ma Kali, the goddess of death and justice, is also the goddess of robbery and dacoity. Naren dakat, who had risen to fame after Chitte dakat, was hanged by Grandfather Satyanatha, just as he had predicted. He lived at the end of Gopal Kristo Lane in Tantapada, on the road that goes to Nimtala east of Beadon Street, but none of his relatives, except his mother, ever saw him. He was saved by the poor when the police tried to catch him, but was betrayed by a fellow robber. He was caught while looting the house of a merchant from Talashery, and sentenced to death along with three accomplices. When Grandfather Satyanatha set out to execute the sentences, one of his coiled ropes broke the cords with which it was bound, straightened as if it were alive and fell on the floor, and its free end caught fire. That was the most evil portent possible! He was terrified and put out the fire with his bare hands, singeing his palms. As he walked towards the gallows Grandfather’s heart thumped like never before, like a war drum, and his fingers grew cold. The police officer read out the order when the condemned convicts were lined up. Grandfather silently promised three goat kids to Kali for strength. Contrary to their usual eagerness, the crowd this time wept silently.