Hangwoman

by K R Meera

  He was hollering now. As I stood there, numb and perplexed, he rushed into Father’s room. A great hubbub rose there. Reporters ran here and there like ants fleeing from a broken anthill. With three hearses crowding the road, the pushing and jostling mass of people in front of the house became completely unmanageable. In the midst of all this, a huge buffalo charged into the melee from across the railway tracks. The crowd scattered and ran.

  ‘What? What happened?’ someone asked, shouting.

  Someone else replied: ‘Hanging stayed!’

  30

  King Deva Pala’s consort died in childbirth. He married another woman so that the newborn prince would be cared for. But this woman hated the prince. She wished to see her son on the throne and hence conspired to kill the prince and leave his body in the jungle. This mission she entrusted to Bhim, my ancestor Bhishma’s evil brother. Bhim did not kill the infant; instead, he chopped off its arms and legs and abandoned it in the jungle. But as he was making his way out of the forest, wiping the blood off his sword, his legs froze. He found himself being pulled back by a magical force to the spot where he had abandoned the baby. There he found the sannyasi Gorakshanath with the infant, now little more than a piece of flesh, in his arms. Terrified, Bhim fled. But later, when he sat down for a meal, he began to see little fingers and toes instead of okra and cucumber. When he sipped water, it turned into blood. Utterly shaken, he returned to the forest where, overcome with contrition, he became the sannyasi’s disciple and servant. Gorakshanath had taken the infant to his ashram and when the prince grew up, he trained him in yoga. Bhim witnessed the prince regain his limbs after twelve years of continuous and rigorous yogic exercise. To commemorate the sprouting of the four limbs, Gorakshanath named the prince Chowrangeenath. Padmavathy, the mother of Lakshmikant Roy Choudhury who was the head of the three villages from which Kolkata was formed, saw a ray of light rise from beneath the waters when she was bathing in the Adi Ganga. She received a swayambhu linga and a toe-shaped stone from the deep, and dedicated them to Chowrangeenath. She had a small hut built beside the Ganga and consecrated these. It was this hut that later became the Kalighat temple. Grandfather Bhim began to live in the hut. It was he who performed the very first animal sacrifice there, Thakuma would recollect proudly. He severed the animal’s head in a single blow. That’s how the custom of severing the head of the sacrificial beast in one blow so that it knew no pain in death began at Kalighat.Over time, in place of the hut, a concrete temple rose. And the surging Adi Ganga shrank to a little pond, the Kundu Pukur.

  My mind was turbulent when we got off bus no. 33 at Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Road. Father was taking me to the temple where we would offer a sacrifice to Ma Kali to remove all the obstacles in our path. In the darkness the flagstaff of the temple resembled the gallows tree. People and vehicles rushed hither and thither. To the east went a wedding procession, to the west, a funeral cortège. The road was completely blocked. As we made our way through the milling crowd, the rows of innumerable shops on either side looked like golden-coloured trams. In all directions, like strange animals, people walked, sat, lay down and crawled. Those who were buying and selling haggled loudly. The stink of the drain, the scent of flowers and the aroma of sweets fried in ghee followed us. In the middle of the crowd, policemen sat relaxing on chairs, smoking and drinking tea. Like insects and cockroaches crawling out of the drain, innumerable women came out of the narrow dark by-lanes at night, with painted lips and heavily rouged cheeks. They hung around outside, surrounding lone men. Some went up to them to haggle. Others, they pulled in. I followed Father, quickening my step. ‘Chetna Mullick, Chetna Mullick,’ someone shouted. People tried to seek me out in the darkness. To avoid them, I fixed my mind on the red-and-white-and-yellow Durga statues in the shops. Like the fish head in the ilish curry, they were accurately cut. Durgas trapped inside plastic key chains and glass frames displayed themselves to the wayfarers. Those large wide-set eyes, the blood-red mark on the forehead, and the chiselled lips aroused memories of someone, again and again.

  ‘Be careful of the pindaris,’ Father reminded me, walking quickly in search of the queue for the darshan.

  We took our place in the queue at Nijo Mandir. While we waited, Sanjeev Kumar’s channel played on the fourteen-inch TV screen in the peda shop beside the entrance. The news bulletin began.

  ‘In the evening, the FM radio sounded at cell no. 3 of the Alipore Correctional Home. There was just one person listening. And the news that was being broadcast made him blissfully happy . . .’

  The pretty newsreader looked at me mockingly as she began to read the news.

  ‘Jatindranath Banerjee has had a very narrow escape from the well-oiled rope that was being readied for him. It was decided earlier that Jatindranath Banerjee, who cruelly killed thirteen-year-old Mridula Chatterjee, would be hanged to death at four o’clock at dawn tomorrow. It would have been the very first execution by a woman—a hangwoman. However, the Supreme Court stayed the execution just when the chief hangman Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick, his daughter Chetna Grddha Mullick and his brother Sukhdev Grddha Mullick completed all preparations and were ready to set out for the prison. For what would have been his last meal, Jatin had asked for ilish, kachoris and jhalmuri, and the jail authorities had made necessary arrangements. He had also wished to be allowed to listen to Rabindra Sangeet the whole night. The home ministry had made a special allotment to purchase a music player for this purpose, but when it did not arrive on time the jail superintendent brought a music player and CDs of Rabindra Sangeet from his own residence.The Supreme Court decision has been widely commended by organizations which oppose the death penalty the world over. At the same time, the victim Mridula Chatterjee’s family and many women’s groups allege that these organizations are worried only about the human rights of criminals . . .’

  In sheer ennui I had switched off the TV at home when this news was first read. Father had tried to invite in acquaintances and tell them what had happened, first sitting in the tea shop and then standing by the road. As soon as the news of the stay order spread, the policemen deputed to guard us stretched their arms and legs and walked away to the other side of the road, swinging their lathis casually. In just five or ten minutes, our house fell back into oblivion, like the fish head devoured by corpse-eater ants. After a while, the reporter of a small newspaper, who did not know of the stay order, rushed in. When he heard the news, he too put away his tape recorder and prepared to leave.

  ‘Babu, please be seated. I have plenty of stories. I’ll tell them only to you.’ Father followed him, looking slightly pathetic.

  ‘I’ll come later, Dada,’ the reporter said. ‘I’m on my way back from Burdwan. I haven’t had a drop of water today—why, I haven’t even peed!’

  ‘Why, what happened? Anyone at home unwell, Babu?’ Father looked worried.

  ‘No, nothing of that sort, thank God. This is a case in Burdwan. The death of a eighteen-month-old child . . . no nurses there . . . the mothers of sick children have been waiting with the injections since yesterday . . .

  no nurse turned up. In the end, one of those babies died. The mother was weeping, holding the medicines in her hand!’

  ‘Ah, how terrible!The state of government hospitals even now . . . Really, Babu! But surely, since the hanging has been postponed, people will look for news about it in tomorrow’s newspaper. What did the hangman Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick say? They’ll want to know. What did his daughter Chetna Grddha Mullick say? Babu, don’t you know, she is the world’s only female hangman. If your paper carries a statement by her, that’ll surely be something to be proud of. And she’s never spoken to any newspaper till now. But she will, if I tell her. A statement by us and our photo will surely do your paper good. But that doesn’t mean you have to dig deep in your pockets . . . just give me whatever you have. This is my statement, Babu: “The hanging has been postponed. Banerjee must be laughing now. But what about the fa
mily of his victim?”’

  I stormed back in disgust into Ramu da’s room, and so didn’t hear the reporter’s answer. But when I heard Father calling me in that tone of his, I could guess—he had taken the bait. Pretending not to hear, I sat down beside Ramu da’s cot. Ramu da was watching the re-telecast of the Group D match between Germany and the Czech Republic in the Euro Cup when Father called me again. He gave me an anxious look.

  ‘Who’s going to win?’ I asked him, not really interested.

  Ramu da’s eyes shone fondly. He sighed and turned them towards the TV screen again. ‘The Czech Republic won yesterday’s match by two goals. Germany lost.’

  ‘Oh, that’s sad, they are a good team.’

  ‘That’s why I’m glad. Let Portugal win . . . the match is on their home ground.’

  My heart became warm again at his broad smile.

  ‘Tonight, it’s between England and Portugal. We’ll know today . . .

  Chetu, mark my words, if Portugal wins tonight, the cup is going to be ours!’ he declared with such passion that you’d think he was going to play the match.

  I always shivered when I saw children making space on the wayside and in the middle of the street to play football because they reminded me of him. The feet that were hacked off his body at the age of twenty-two had smelled of ammonia because he had been running in the mud of the football ground. I remembered the blotchy old sheet that covered the mattress on the rickety old cot in SSKM Medical College that we’d managed to get into only because some policeman had put in a word for us. His blood too made dark patches on the sheet. Just three beds away, water from a leaky toilet nearby made a pool. The floor was so dirty, it looked as though it had never been washed. Everywhere we looked there were stains, marks, dirt, stench, pain and tears. When he regained consciousness, Ramu da tried to jump up, not realizing that he had lost his legs. My leg itches, he screamed. ‘When can I go back to playing football?’ he asked the doctor. Thakuma and Ma broke down, hearing him. All of us struggled to cope with his condition every day.

  ‘Chetna, didn’t you hear me call?’

  Father’s question was gently put.

  I leapt up and stood before him, head bowed.

  ‘Don’t you know, there will be no respite for you in this world and the next if you defy your father?’

  I didn’t reply to that either.

  ‘It’s a big loss of face. I’d feared this . . . when Chakrabarty babu called, I asked him if this would happen, really. The court has no intelligence! If someone isn’t hanged once in a while, will anyone have any fear at all? Hanging always fortifies society’s inner strength, did you know?’

  He paced the room uneasily. Fished out a cigarette from the pouch at his waist and lit it.

  ‘Phani, listen to me,’ said Thakuma from the doorstep. She had just come in with a heap of vegetables in her aanchal, probably scrounged from somewhere in the market. ‘Go to Kalighat, appease Ma Kali with a sacrifice. She will bless you and your children.’ That’s how Father set off for the temple with me. The last time I had visited the temple was before Niharika’s wedding. The temple and premises looked the same. Yet, things had changed. Noise filled the air; I longed for a little quiet. The queue moved at a snail’s pace through the metal detectors. I waited, totally bored. The sellers of yellow garlands that looked like tennis balls strung together attacked us relentlessly.

  ‘Come to the Jorbangala queue . . . Dada, come this way . . . your darshan can be completed in just five minutes . . . give what you like . . .’

  The brokers kept tempting the devotees.

  ‘Don’t pay attention to them. Their pockets swallow everything. The donations go to the Haldar family which ousted the Roy Choudhuris. It’s now given out by auction . . . all that devotees place before Ma Kali will be theirs in effect.’ Father reminded me, irritated.

  As I waited on the steps to Nijo Mandir, I saw a dark-skinned woman in a red sari give out the kumkum and prasad at Shoshtitala, believed to be the samadhi of Brahmanandagiri Swami. Jostled hard from behind, I stumbled into the temple, and was shoved right before the central shrine. There was such a crowd; I stayed in the space between the deity and the wall only for a few minutes. Kali, with her three red eyes like bael leaves upon her pitch-black face, smiled, her long golden tongue hanging almost to her breasts. A priest held out the sacred flame to me and snatched the change from my hand. He dug out a bit of sindoor from the idol and pressed it into my forehead. Before I could look one more time into Ma Kali’s eyes, I had been pushed out by the pindaris. Father slipped as we came down the marble steps. As I stopped him from falling, my eyes became wet. Father went towards Harkat Tala past Nat Mandir, where a shirtless man was chopping meat. He paid for the sacrifice and came back; I walked out pretending not to see the heap of cow and goat heads. Two altars black with blood and red with silk drew my eyes towards them. On the large altar meant for cow and buffalo sacrifice, the remnants stuck like black mushrooms. On the smaller one, for goats, flies buzzed and seethed even in the dark. I felt sorry for Kali who drank more and more blood each day but still remained thirsty. And tried not to think of the animal which would be sacrificed for us.

  ‘Ma Kali will not let us down—she was here before Kolkata. So were we,’ Father said confidently as he put on the slippers he had left at the peda shop.

  The image of Kali’s three eyes was still impressed in my mind. In the beginning, the idol had only a face, Thakuma used to say. The four arms and the golden tongue were added later. The belief is that Sati’s toe, the sati ango, is still somewhere in the temple. But it is kept in a secret place. During the snan yatra, the priests blindfold themselves and dip the toe in the Ganga from time to time.

  ‘In the days that come, you should do exactly as I say,’ Father told me as we walked through the haggling, the selling, the buying and the angry shrieks towards Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Road.

  The TV news followed us everywhere.

  ‘All preparations for the hanging at dawn tomorrow had been completed. The chief hangman Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick and his daughter Chetna Grddha Mullick had visited Alipore Jail and conducted the test hanging successfully. The Supreme Court has issued the stay order upon an appeal by Jatindranath Banerjee’s wife Kokila Banerjee, which states that the sentence should not be carried out since the appeal to the President of India, filed after the Bengal governor rejected Jatindranath’s mercy petition, is still pending.’

  Father sighed deeply.

  ‘Even the generator was set up in the jail . . . What to do! His time has not yet arrived.’

  How Father had pontificated about death’s vacillations yesterday as he was being filmed! My legs felt heavy as I walked, my head bent lower, my heart grew dim. I believed that this was because the crown of Indian womanhood and self-respect that I had been wearing for a month and six days had fallen off. The crown might have been heavy, but it had given me security.

  The city flowed like a Ganga of hustle and bustle. Our bus got caught everywhere in the traffic. We reached home late. As I ate supper without any appetite, I knew that it was Sanjeev Kumar’s absence that troubled me most. The memories of our strolls after Hangwoman’s Diary rose up and gave me heartburn. How I wished to blend with him into the throngs of the rich and the poor in the city, in the excesses of sounds and sights and scents just one more time!

  ‘I told you earlier, you shouldn’t feel bad after this day—today,’ Ramu da whispered.

  I was sitting on the floor next to his cot, looking tired.

  ‘Got used to it for a whole month, Ramu da . . .’

  ‘Look, you have to get back to normal life slowly. You’ve got to undo it like you’d take off a noose. You must find work, make some money, attend an evening course and complete your education. No point hanging on to the rope of tradition, Chetu . . .’

  His voice was moist with emotion.

  ‘Y
ou have to slowly wipe off all the experiences and memories of this month. Like the past were just a recap you’d watch of a game on TV. From today, walk back little by little. Erase, throw out, one by one, each of the hopes and sights and memories you picked up on the way. You will not need them any more. He won’t come in search of you. He doesn’t need you any more.’

  My face glowered. I visualized myself walking back and erasing each of the footprints on the path I’d walked a whole month. Images of the ant-eaten fish head, bodies with painted lips, aparajita vines that thrived and bloomed inside the ruined bungalow, diamond ear studs, cellar holes, the hand squeezing my left breast hard, the camera that focused on Ramu da which I had knocked to the floor, and Thakuma’s gold coin zoomed past my eyes.

  Thakuma came hobbling into the room and sat down on the bed then. ‘Thakuma, did you find your gold coin?’ I asked her without really thinking.

  That was the deed of the hangman thirsting for the blood of others, I realized. My body was burning, trying to thrust away the tumult inside.

  ‘Isn’t it gone forever? What evidence does this old woman have of the great traditions of this family? Gone forever?’ she asked haltingly.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I had kept it under your pillow, Thakuma.’

  Ramu da and Thakuma looked at me as though they couldn’t believe their ears.

  ‘So where is it, then?’

  When I said that someone must have taken it, that led to a mighty commotion. Thakuma surged up. Her thin, reed-like body flew with remarkable vigour out of the room and into the kitchen. She grabbed the small cloth bag which Ma had hidden there and tore it to shreds. Sanjeev Kumar’s ear studs and bangles fell on the ground but not the coin. Thakuma then stormed into Kaku’s room. Hearing the upheaval, Father, who was having a drink in his room, rushed there.

  ‘See, did you see what he’s bought his wife? New gold earrings! Where did that money come from?’