Hangwoman

by K R Meera

  The rickshaw turned south from the front of the General Post Office and reached the Royal Insurance Company buildings; it then turned left and coursed through Bankshall Street that connected Koilaghat and Hare Street. The building known earlier as the Company House came into sight. It stood on the spot where the Sabarna Roy Choudhury family had erected its court building before the British. We then passed the red-brick building that is now the railway manager’s office. I imagined this building back in time when it used to be the governor’s residence. I saw the red roses that bloomed in its spacious gardens which once stretched right up to Lal Digi shrivel and fall in the cannon fire when Siraj-ud-Daula’s forces captured the fort in 1756. I saw the British take that land again and build on it what came to be called the Marine House. As the Cutchery building with its balconies all hung with washing and door as high as a coconut tree came into sight, I turned my head the other way, looking for a worn old building, which I had heard used to be just opposite. Sanjeev Kumar Mitra held me closer and threw me a questioning look. I sank into his shoulder almost involuntarily.

  ‘That was the old Criterion Hotel. My dadu’s big dream was to have a cup of tea there . . .’

  When Sanjeev Kumar saw that seedy-looking structure, now hive-like with many tiny shops crowding in it, and laughed scornfully, the rickshaw driver turned towards us. He had a handlebar moustache longer than my father’s. It hung on the sunken cheeks of his sunburned face as if it had been strung from the high nose that rose on it. He spoke with seriousness: ‘Babu, that used to belong to my grandfather’s grandfather.’

  When Sanjeev Kumar burst into laughter again, I sat up, alert. ‘Don’t laugh . . . this is Kolkata,’ I murmured.

  When he looked at me, puzzled, the rickshaw driver turned towards us once again.

  ‘My grandfather’s grandfather was a sultan, Babu,’ he continued, panting as he pedalled.

  ‘A sultan?’ Sanjeev Kumar laughed again.

  ‘Yes, from Mysore . . .’

  He got off the cycle and began walking, pulling the rickshaw along, looking at us and gasping heavily for breath. ‘Have you heard of Tipu Sultan?’ he asked.

  I was struck with surprise. Sanjeev Kumar who had started to laugh, stopped and now looked keenly at him. He panted like a scrawny old horse, pulling the rickshaw with all his strength and speaking in a loud hollow tone as he took us forward. ‘Tipu Sultan’s son Shahzada Moin-ud-din Sultan Sahib was my grandfather’s grandfather. My grandfather’s father had a big palace here. It’s where he grew up. What to say? Koro paushmas, koro shorbonash!’

  I stayed quiet, looking at him. He heaved once more and then climbed back on to the cycle, his feet on the pedals, wiping his neck and face with one end of the torn gamchha wrapped around his forehead. His body kept rising and falling on the pedals as if he were dancing on them.

  ‘This Kolkata of yours—it is a magical city. Sultans pull rickshaws, emperors polish shoes!’ Disbelief echoed in Sanjeev Kumar Mitra’s voice. When we got off near Bowbazar, he smiled at the rickshaw puller warmly: ‘Sultan sahib, what about a cup of tea before you go?’

  ‘Anwar Shah, that’s my name, Babu.’ He grinned, showing big stained teeth, and accompanied us into a tea shop. Sitting on one of the roadside benches he began to animatedly narrate his ancestors’ stories. ‘Tipu Sultan had four wives and sixteen children,’ he began. ‘The British who defeated Tipu sent his sons to Calcutta. They lived as sultans for a few more generations, then they slipped through the fingers of Time like the water of the Ganga and merged into this black soil.’ I had heard Thakuma tell the story of one of Tipu Sultan’s grandsons who killed himself. His greatest wealth had been music. Having lost all his worldly possessions in disputes with relatives, he moved into a rented house. One day, the grandson returned home to see the officials and the policemen seizing his musical instruments. He ran after their carriage for a long distance, begging them unsuccessfully to spare at least a tanpura. Shattered, he returned home, picked up the double-barrelled gun that hung on the wall, and shot himself in the head. The feathers from his turban floated around in the room. Bits of his brain stayed stuck to the ceiling and the walls of the house for many years after.

  ‘After Tipu Sultan’s death, we were given land in Tollygunje. There were about three hundred people in the group that arrived here from Mysore.’

  I watched with interest as he drank his tea, sweeping aside the handlebar moustache. How would it look if Tipu Sultan himself were sitting with his turban and ceremonial sword on the wayside bench at a Bowbazar tea shop and drinking tea, I wondered. His palace used to be near our house. I had heard from Thakuma about the mosques that his sons built in his name.

  ‘Grandfather Sultan was obsessed with tigers. He had a tiger’s image etched or painted on his ceremonial sword, guns and cannons. He even had a mechanical toy—a tiger pouncing on a sahib. The sultan used to laugh when the tiger mauled the sahib, they say . . .’

  ‘Anwar bhai, how long have you been pedalling this rickshaw?’ asked Sanjeev Kumar.

  ‘Oh, this one? This doesn’t belong to me. It’s owned by a Bihari. He owns a hundred and fifty such rickshaws. I used to be a farmer in Singur. All that is gone. I have four girls at home. My wife died two years ago. Maybe that’s for the best. All I have from pedalling on and on are my swollen and painful balls.’

  I stood staring into the retreating sunlight as though I could not make sense of his words.

  ‘The descendants of Tipu Sultan who resisted the British live today as rickshaw wallahs and housemaids. The descendants of the nizam who submitted to them wholeheartedly roll about in luxury! What a contradiction, Babu!’

  Flinging away the mud cup and wiping dry his moustache, Anwar Shah stood, erect, with the dignity of a sultan. The bones sticking out of his emaciated body pierced my eyes. His shoulders were hunched, they looked broken; his stomach caved inwards; his legs were little more than sticks. The rubber tiger bleached by the rain and sun reflected in his eyes, glinting in their cavernous depths.

  Sanjeev Kumar sighed. ‘Fate, what else, Bhai?’

  Democracy, not fate, I wanted to say. I saw the heir of the sultan leave, standing up on the pedals and contorting his body. The ends of his moustache were being swept back by the wind. Maybe all he had of his royal legacy were the moustache and the rubber tiger.

  Sanjeev Kumar took my hand lovingly. ‘Chetu, what are you thinking?’

  I was a little diffident now and wanted to move away from him. Memories of bygone generations had surged up in my veins after meeting the sultan’s descendant.

  ‘All these street corners where four roads met used to have gallows trees in the old days,’ I murmured to Sanjeev Kumar Mitra.

  I felt troubled. Anwar Shah’s words had cut loose memories within me.

  ‘The places where Lal Digi, Bowbazar, Chitpur Road and Bentick Street met . . . there used to be huge gallows trees towering over each . . .’ I said.

  He let go of my hand.

  ‘So many have been hanged there by my forefathers . . .’

  Sanjeev Kumar sighed.

  ‘In the past, the hangman needed but a sturdy tree. Then he began to fix two logs of wood on the ground and connect them with a pole. Baba says that the gallows have been shaped by scientific progress and revolutionary thought . . .’

  Sanjeev Kumar looked at me, astonished. ‘What a time to talk about the gallows!’

  ‘Don’t you want to build one for yourself?’ I asked, sarcasm tinging my voice.

  He smiled foolishly. ‘That happens to be my trade. Your job is to carry out justice, mine is to make people sit transfixed before the TV.’

  ‘Buying and selling.’

  ‘Yes. Buying and selling.’ He smiled, taking my hand again. ‘It’s a lovely evening . . . I wish to take a stroll with you, Chetna. Please don’t talk to me now about gallows and hangman’s knots and children
with insects flying out of their noses and mouths . . .’

  He walked leisurely, holding me close to his body. We walked into the rush in front of the bookshops in College Street. When we reached the ancient Coffee House building, little children, naked and covered with mud, mobbed us with begging bowls. This city is making needless noise, I felt. My head reeled from the sounds of vehicles, hawkers, beggars and students. I followed him, inhaling the scent of books, old and new. I was seeing this part of the city for the first time. From the main road, we turned into a small, obscure lane. It was a path from bygone times, lined with buildings from the British era. Most of the houses were shut; boards bearing the names of publishing houses and various agencies hung in front of them. The setting sun was partially hidden beneath a raincloud, like a gold coin someone had stowed under it hastily.

  Stopping in front of an old two-storeyed mansion which bore on its head a banyan tree as tall as a man, Sanjeev Kumar said: ‘There will always be an old bungalow in the middle of any city, on the roof of which a banyan grows.’ The gates of the building were rundown. A thick tree root split in two as it snaked out of a dilapidated awning; it reminded me of Anwar Shah’s handlebar moustache. In the light of dusk that filtered through the banyan leaves, the sun looked like a blue spider dozing in the middle of a web of gold. Sanjeev Kumar stepped into the yard, holding my hand.

  ‘This was built in the nineteenth century . . . was painted white then.’

  ‘Have you been here before?’ I asked, worried.

  The silence of a forest hung within those gates. The nilmani latha creeper and the bansimar, lost in a tight embrace that broke down the walls of the ancient structure, were in full bloom. The intoxicating scent of a kanthali champa about to bloom wafted from one of the rooms inside. As he stepped into the mansion still holding my hand, Sanjeev Kumar Mitra whispered, ‘This is my house . . .’

  I turned my eyes to him in disbelief. The old house spread around us silently—its head from which the turban had been torn off, walls that were bereft of clothing, and cracked floors. This might have been a bungalow built by some white sahib for some pretty Bengali mistress, I concluded. It made me hallucinate about a woman with hennaed feet adorned with silver toe rings and anklets, her face covered with the pallu of her sari, walking softly in a room inside. Sanjeev Kumar Mitra took off his glasses and put them in his pocket. He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. I began to feel very drowsy again, like a bird trapped in the burning tree. When I looked into his eyes, a thousand nilmani latha creepers sprouted beneath my feet and held out their tender vines towards him.

  He pressed his lips on my forehead and was quiet for a few moments. Then in a deep low whisper, he asked, ‘Shall I guess what you are thinking now?’

  My eyes closed languidly; I leaned towards him and rested my head on his chest.

  ‘About how to throw a noose around my neck if I hurt you . . . Right?’

  I raised my head, opened my eyes, and smiled at him.

  ‘Now I can see on your lips the kind of smile a woman bestows on a man. For the first time since we met. That means . . . I guessed correctly, didn’t I?’

  ‘No . . .’ I said.

  And felt extraordinarily light after. I discovered that a thousand varieties of creepers were thriving inside that house and was delighted. Ban kalami and ramsor and chehurlata and the angulilata, and the dusky blue-leaved, yellow-hearted miche—all hurried to spring up zestfully in every bit of space. When a breeze entered the house through a shattered window, my skin tingled in pleasure.

  ‘My mother loved this flower . . .’ Sanjeev Kumar said, taking in his hands a flower bud just bursting into bloom on a vine that peeped into the room. He came nearer, placed his hands on my shoulders, and turned me to face him. Looking into my eyes, he asked: ‘Tell me, what are you thinking now?’

  I leaned my forehead again on his chest and, in a tired voice, told him the truth. ‘I want to fuck you hard, even if only once . . .’

  Sanjeev Kumar’s head jerked back as he looked at me. Tears brimmed in my eyes. We stood within the four walls of that jungle, silent for many moments. A small orange bird flew in and then flew away, twittering loudly. Sanjeev Kumar picked up my hand and slapped himself hard on his left cheek.

  ‘I beg you, forgive me!’

  A teardrop flowed down my cheek slowly.

  ‘Look, Chetna, this is the first time I have ever begged forgiveness of anyone,’ he said. I melted into his embrace. I had never ever loved anyone the way I loved him then. We stood there for a long while. Inviting me to love, he roused rapture in me. He kissed my wounds gently. He did not tell me how this ruined house had become his. When I came out with him, night had covered the city with a thick dark blanket. The force of love surged in my blood.

  The next day, I successfully completed the first sandbag rehearsal of my very first hanging.

  It was Kaku who got ready the sandbag weighing seventy-five kilos with which we were to test the strength of the rope to hang Jatindranath Banerjee. He weighed a mere fifty kilos but the weight of the sandbag for the test must be one and a half times that of the condemned man. Tying it up with a cord, I tried not to think. At the gallows tree, kneeling on the planks which had fallen away beneath my feet once before, I tied one end of the rope to the sandbag tightly. The lever’s handle was cold. I imagined with trepidation the five-feet-ten-inches-tall body of Jatin Banerjee in place of the sandbag.

  ‘Um, be brave. Pull the lever,’ ordered Father, stroking his moustache and giving me a look of approval. My hand closed on the lever. The planks fell away, sounding like a war drum. The sandbag shook and fell into the cellar. I did not watch the rope shiver hard at first, slowing down gradually, and calmly swinging afterwards. Because of the unceasing rain in the past two days, the rainwater that had collected below the gallows platform had formed a pool. The many shrubs that the convicts had planted in front of the verandas now stood half submerged in the water, nevertheless holding themselves up, announcing their self-respect. The roads submerged in flood waters beneath Kolkata’s new flyovers appeared in my mind’s eye. I dreamt: leaning against Sanjeev Kumar Mitra’s chest, I was going around a rain-soaked Kolkata in a cycle rickshaw under a silver-coloured sunshade.

  The usual practice was to keep the sandbag hanging for at least an hour and a half to make sure that the rope would not break. Father, Kaku and I watched. As though a lever had been pulled in the sky, the rain fell headlong into the cellar. Like love, the downpour too left me terrified. Running to the veranda away from the rain, I saw the flower that Sanjeev Kumar Mitra’s mother loved growing on a creeper below the gallows platform. It got tangled in the unending strands of the rain’s tresses and fell off the vine. I loved it too. Aparajita—the unvanquished—was its name.

  21

  ‘My last major role in a jatra was in Ma Mati Manush. That was 1975. “Mother, Land, Man”—that’s what it means. The land is like Mother, Sanju babu. The history of Bengal . . . why, of all of India . . . is about the struggle for land,’ Father said to Sanjeev Kumar Mitra as he sat down on the cot, put the cigarette to his lips and puffed at it.

  His lungi was folded above his knees. He rubbed his left knee in circles as he spoke. I stood leaning against the wall, listening to them. All three of us were in the room where Father’s and our family’s past was on display. When Sanjeev Kumar had come to our house before lunchtime, creepers of an unknown sort had begun to put out vines and shoots within my body. My left breast had forgotten the pain it had borne when he had crushed it in his hand; it now throbbed with desire for him. Whenever my eyes drew away from him, they turned to the beam from which Niharika’s body had swung back and forth, lifeless. It struck me with an inward shudder that if his house bore the weight of a banyan tree with spreading roots, then in this house of ours, corpses of the past hung in each room.

  ‘My hand shook when I picked up the hangman’s rope for the
first time. I felt as though the breath of a powerful, gigantic creature was falling on my body. It was the asura Jwara—the demon called Fever. After I came home from Satyapal Chakrabarty’s hanging, I fell very ill. I could feel within me a thousand people breathing. I felt terribly uneasy. It dawned on me that I was not one man but many men in one body. They erupted from my body. Look, Sanju babu,’ Father said running his fingers over his arm, ‘they rose up on my skin like mustard seeds, piercing my flesh . . .’

  The pox had broken out on his body then. He lay on the bare floor with neem paste smeared all over him. The goddess of the pox—Devi Sitala, who held a silver broom in one of her four hands, and in the other three a winnow, a pot of the sacred water of the Ganga, and a small bowl—had dragged him down. Her seed sprouted all over our house.