Hangwoman

by K R Meera

  ‘Who?’ I was eager to know.

  Kaku sighed again and examined the hair tips with his fingers.

  ‘It all began with Jyotirmayi . . . It was she who noticed that there were shoe prints on the mud paths of the fields, from the fields to the road.’

  He was telling the story of what had happened in the Terai village. I did not wish to recall the tale of Kanu Sanyal, Charu Majumdar and Jangal Santhal who called forth Spring Thunder with the bow and arrow. But Jyotirmayi’s story was interesting. She, while looking for her father who had not come back from the fields, noticed the shoe prints and alerted the villagers. When workers began to go missing, she went from hut to hut and got the women together. They went to the field before daybreak and hid. They saw policemen surround workers in the middle of paddy fields and bundle them away, gagging their mouths. The womenfolk stopped the police and would not let them leave. When they were told that the police were arresting the tenants who hadn’t paid the rent arrears, the whole village rose up in anger. The police ran away but returned with a stronger force. That was when the arrows sped out of the bushes towards the police. Police inspector Sonam Wangdi was felled by Jangal Santhal’s arrow.

  ‘Oh Chetu di, you should have seen the police flee the day Wangdi fell. They threw away their rifles and their boots too!’

  ‘She learned to shoot using that rifle!’ Kaku sighed.

  ‘How sharp her aim was!’

  When the police returned with reinforcements, the villagers picked up whatever they could and prepared for outright war. Some of the women who carried their babies in slings on their backs beat up the police, but were crushed beneath their feet.

  ‘Nine women and two infants.’

  ‘Jyotirmayi?’

  ‘No, she . . .’

  Kaku was weeping. ‘Because her body was never recovered, Chetu. Until that happens, there is no evidence to prove that she is dead.’ As he shook the towel he had used to cover Mano da’s chest, the tears in Kaku’s right eye flowed freely. He had been in love with her. My head grew numb as I stared at this man who had loved Jyotirmayi, waged war against Indira Gandhi and lived in mortal fear of Syamili di.

  Mano da examined himself in the mirror; satisfied with what he saw, he nodded his approval. I stepped on to the pavement with him. He looked at the buzzing humanity on the road for a few seconds. ‘Did you think I came here to have a haircut? So late? I made some inquiries about that boy. Some phenomenon he is—a Naxalite father, a sex-worker mother, and the son is a journalist,’ Mano da guffawed.

  I lunged back as if taking a blow.

  ‘Naxalite? Who?’

  ‘That fellow’s father. His name was Mitran. He used to hang around here in 1967. In Calcutta University, studying English literature, I think.’ He smoothed my curls and smiled. ‘Let’s get some tea?’

  ‘From her father’s shop?’ Kaku came up behind, cribbing like a child. ‘I don’t want it. Dada hasn’t spoken to me in so long! What did I do, to be accused and ignored thus? No, no, I don’t want even a drop of water from this house!’

  ‘Okay, okay, from somewhere else then, if not from here. Let’s walk a bit.’

  We went over to Komal da’s shop opposite the railway crossing, to the left of where Sircar mama used to ply his trade. There was no place to sit, so we stood there sipping from our mud cups. A luxury boat passed by on the river. Green, yellow and red lights flashed from it; we could hear music—a guitar and drums—from inside the boat. Father: Naxalite; mother: sex worker—the drumbeats seemed to tell us.

  ‘Mano da, is that true? How did you get to know?’ I asked him when we were going back.

  He held my hand gently. When we reached my house, he placed his hand on my shoulder, looked straight into my eyes, and said, ‘Don’t I have the responsibility to find out about the man who’s going to marry you?’

  Tears sprang into my eyes.

  ‘His father was a revolutionary. When the revolution failed, he left this place. Took a girl with him. After four or five years, she came back.’

  ‘Very mysterious, Mano da!’ I whispered.

  ‘Let him be whoever . . . my worry isn’t that. Will Jatindranath’s death sentence be carried out or not? Is it easy to kill, my child?’

  I sighed. Kaku, who was lagging behind, now caught up.

  ‘Mano da, I will definitely kill the person who is meant to die by my hands.’

  ‘You know what taking a life is only when you raise your hand to kill. There is someone inside you, someone you take everywhere with you. He will stop your hand at that moment. You will have to kill him first to kill another.’

  He paused to look at Kaku and me.

  ‘It’s not like you think. The fellow who leaps out of you is much stronger than you can imagine.’

  ‘It will be a woman who leaps out of me, Mano da!’ I tried to joke, but he continued, sadly. ‘But that’s the saddest thing. Even the Creator cannot stop some women.’

  ‘You’re saying that the execution will be stalled if she is stronger?’

  ‘No, only that if it happens we will lose Chetna forever!’

  His voice was calm. I did not understand then that it was necessary to convince him there was more than one Chetna. That night too was a sleepless night. I kept thinking that death was crouching somewhere in the room with a camera. It was lapping up my movements. I tried to think of something else: Kaku. I thought of him with wonder. I remember him moving into this house permanently in 1987, when I was five years old. He put down his bed and other belongings with a big thud in the room which Ramu da had been using till then.

  Then he opened his trunk and gave me several dolls and balloons.

  He spent till evening cleaning the room and then stepped out after a bath. It was about ten when Hemu da banged on our door. I jumped awake.

  ‘Oh Didi, very bad! Phani da and Sudev da are fighting!’ he yelled.

  ‘Ma Kali!’ Thakuma jumped up and ran out.

  I rubbed my eyes and ran after her. As we waited for the body of a very old man to move on the road, we could hear them grappling on the ground where the sweet shop stands now, in front of a cycle repair shop that was there then.

  ‘I’ll kill you today, you bugger!’ Father’s booming voice resounded on Strand Road.

  The bored young men who had come with the corpse turned around again and again keenly, and cracked jokes. Kaku, who was trying to wriggle out of Father’s grasp, could not be heard in the din. When Thakuma, followed shortly by Ma, rushed there, separated them, and took them back home, Father was still yelling in fury: ‘Shameless fellow! I am ashamed to call him my younger brother!’

  ‘Why? What happened?’Thakuma asked.

  ‘Why are you beating up this poor fellow? Are you mad?’ asked Ma, and his fury turned towards her.

  ‘Do you know where he was?’ Father raised his hand to slap Ma. ‘In Sonagachi!’

  ‘Eesh,’said Ma and withdrew, drawing her aanchal over her head.

  But Thakuma smiled as if it were nothing. ‘Oh—so that’s the big thing! Well, isn’t he a man too? Where should he be going?’

  ‘Chi! See how the mother who gave birth to him speaks!’ Father was wild with anger.

  ‘But, Dada, you were coming out while I was going in. How come I alone am at fault?’ Kaku said with a whine as he came out with a bit of talcum powder on his face.

  That started Father off again. Thakuma smiled in disdain.

  Kaku rubbed the talcum into his face and went to Ma: ‘Didi, I know that none of you want me. I know, you don’t think very highly of me . . .’

  When he went away into his room with his eyes full, everyone fell silent. Ramu da shut his book and went and stretched out on his cot. Thakuma started chewing betel again. Ma, flustered, caught hold of me and snapped, ‘Off to bed, child!’

  ‘Thakuma, why did Baba beat Kaku la
st night?’ I twirled the edge of my blue-on-yellow frock and asked Thakuma in a low voice the next day.

  ‘Chetu, the evil spirit from Darjeeling must have got into him!’

  I remembered the pain in Thakuma’s voice. Only after I joined the Bhavishyath did I know which evil spirit it was— the one from Darjeeling that had got into him in 1987. That he had remained with Jangal Santhal who had drowned himself in booze after his release from prison in 1979, continually racked with want. He had constantly moved with Jangal Santhal from one place to the next till Santhal’s death in 1987. The thought of Kaku’s life filled me with pain at twenty-two, just as it had when I was five. I slept off in that ache and 11 July passed out of my life.

  The following day, 12 July, however, was very eventful. The rusty old ambulance that carried the body of the young woman who had been found in the Maidan, strangled with her own dupatta, broke down right in front of our house. Some retired policemen came out of it, asking Father, what news, Phani da. Father was pleased; he took the gamchha off his shoulder and led them into the tea shop respectfully. I was going to take a bath and caught a clear glimpse of the bluish bloated face inside the ambulance. For a moment it seemed like Kaku to me. The swollen eyelids, the blackened face and the hair sticking to the skull left me fearful. When I came back after my bath, I saw it again. There was a white worm wriggling over the checked coverlet on the body. The policemen and Father were coming out after tea.

  ‘Not one or two, but six whole weeks! No point keeping it, worms have begun to appear,’ one of the policemen said.

  ‘Wasn’t there an inquiry, Babu?’ asked Father.

  ‘The only lead was a name—Sujoy. We looked everywhere possible. Really sad . . . seems like a really nice girl.’

  My mind became dim as I went in and dried my hair. My body remembered the unbelievably intense pain you experience when the man whom you love and trust suddenly thrusts his hand out to wring your neck. It was with a heavy heart that I changed and had breakfast. I put Mano da’s proofs into my bag and was about to leave when a woman showed up at our door.

  ‘Chetu di, do you remember me?’

  It was Sushila di, from Sanjeev Kumar’s house. This was unexpected. Before I could ask her why she had come, Trailokya Devi stepped in through the door.

  ‘Everyone knows the hangman’s house is on Strand Road!’ Her sweet voice rang in the house.

  I did not know what to do. ‘Come in,’ I invited, somewhat ashamed of the house.

  ‘Thank you for inviting me in, Chetna. Come, Sushila.’

  She walked in gracefully, like an empress, and sat with ease on Ramu da’s cot. Thakuma was shaking the betel on to her palm—her eyes almost popped out. I ran into the kitchen and told Ma that Sanjeev Kumar’s mother had come.

  ‘Mother?’ she asked, flabbergasted.

  I ran back without replying.

  Trailokya Devi was looking around our house.

  ‘It’s an old house,’ I said quickly.

  ‘This part used to be the cowshed or storeroom of our house during the days of the maharajas,’ said Thakuma, stuffing the betel in her mouth. ‘Did you know, there were eighteen flowering trees here—for Wajid Ali Shah’s white doves?’

  ‘Sanju babu didn’t come?’ Mother asked mindfully, bringing her some water.

  ‘No, I came to perform a puja at the Ghat. Today is my husband’s death anniversary.’

  ‘Sanju babu’s father?’

  ‘His real name is Shambu,’ she smiled. ‘But his father didn’t like it. You Bengalis have two names each, and likewise, two natures, he would complain.’

  She looked at me with a smile.

  ‘He was a good man, scholarly, brave, never reluctant to sacrifice his life for others, but . . .’ She put down the empty glass and looked at me as if sending a warning, ‘the wife is not permitted to do it.’

  ‘Do what?’ I asked, involuntarily.

  She gave me a cold smile. ‘To sacrifice herself for others!’ Kindness and pain mingled in her expression as she looked into my confused eyes.

  ‘Call your father! Where is he?’ Thakuma urged me. She had forgotten that the woman before her was the mother of the man who had stolen her gold coin.

  ‘Don’t bother him please. I will come again.’ She got up to leave.

  As if it was reluctant to let her go, the room held fast to the scent of roses she had brought in. She turned to me when we were outside: ‘Come, Chetna, I’ll drop you at the office.’

  I was mesmerized by her; she made me feel strong. I followed her, bag on my shoulder. When she turned left from our house and walked towards the expensive car parked near the transport station, many who were working on the road and in the shops raised their heads to look at her. The car turned left from the Nimeshwar Baba temple. Sushila di, sitting in the front seat, bowed as we drove past the front of the temple. The woman in the back seat, by my side, leaned back against the seat and hummed, ‘Babul mora . . .’

  ‘Can’t take a step on the Ghat! Too many beggars!’ she said then, looking at me, eager for conversation.

  ‘They began to appear in Kolkata in the eighteenth century,’ I said. It started with the farmers who had lost their land when their villages had been taken over to create Kolkata. They began to collect a paisa each from the shops which stood on the land that had been theirs once. Though the shopkeepers paid up at first, later, when trade prospered, they decided not to pay the farmers. The beggars who lost their livelihood filed a complaint in court.

  ‘How do you know?’ She was amazed.

  ‘The complaint filed by Jeebandas Bairagi, Basudev Barmarchari and other beggars was written by an ancestor of mine.’

  ‘Oh!’ she smiled slowly.

  ‘At that point, Sanju babu’s ancestor Naren dakat had not yet come to Kolkata.’

  I cast a sidelong glance at her. Her eyes grew wide. History is the most potent of weapons. Falling prey to its sharp points while off-guard can weaken one’s entire nervous system. By the time my ancestor met Naren dakat, the beggars in Kolkata had grown so numerous that one of the richest men in the city, Krishnachandra Ghoshal, and his son Jainarayan were compelled to conduct a census of beggars. They counted some five hundred blind, crippled, ill, orphaned, widowed, elderly beggars including aged prostitutes. The beggars all died in almost the same manner—run over by speeding horse carriages! Did any of the people who sat inside those carriages which dashed along the city roads fast enough to knock down and kill people care to show any feeling of fellowship with those who were killed thus? I doubted it.

  When the car reached the Jatrapara offices, I touched the driver’s shoulder.

  ‘‘I’ll get off here. I can go on my own.’

  Trailokya Devi leaned forward.

  ‘Pawan da, don’t stop. If it is not a bother, let’s go home, Chetna. I need to talk with you.’

  This time, it was I who looked at her sharply.

  ‘What do we have to talk about?’

  She leaned back against the seat and looked at me affectionately. ‘It is wonderful to talk to you. Look, I am fifty-three now. At this age, it isn’t food or medicine that one needs, but someone with whom one can talk freely.’

  Those were honest words. As the car waited for the gates of Aparajita Apartments on Avinash Kaviraj Road to open, I noticed that the street was quiet and empty save for a lone schoolchild and a fortyish man in a suit who crossed each other. The car went in; when I stepped into the house of nine stairways as the guest of the lady of the house, my eyes searched for Sanjeev Kumar Mitra. We climbed the stairs to the same apartment. She went in and turned on the air conditioner. Leaning against the bolsters on the bed, she called me to her side. I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling shy. There were carved lotuses blooming on each leg of the rosewood bed.

  ‘You looked really familiar, you know?’

  I waited
a moment as she changed channels on the TV with the remote.

  ‘Maybe you saw me on TV?’

  She got up then, walked towards the wall near the northern window, and stood before a large mirror, looking at herself.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘not there. Here, in this mirror.’

  Because she sensed that I was nonplussed, she came over and placed her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘When I look at you, I feel that I am looking at my own face as it was many years ago.’

  She smiled. I could not.

  ‘He’s never told you anything about me?’

  ‘Only that his mother is no more . . .’ My voice grew weak. ‘I don’t know why he said that. Could any son say his mother is dead when she is alive?’

  A smile bloomed again on her face.

  ‘No one can tell exactly how someone died, Chetna.’

  She sat on the bed.

  ‘Swami Vivekanada died in meditation. There were drops of blood trickling down from his nose and mouth, and seeping from the edges of his closed eyes.’

  ‘Mahasamadhi,’ I began my counter-argument. ‘Maybe the soul broke through the brahmarandra centre of the skull and flew away.’

  Our eyes met.

  ‘That happens only when death occurs during meditation. When a person is hanged, his soul escapes through the nine openings of the body. Like water being squeezed out of a plastic bag with holes in it.’

  I stopped to enjoy the expression on her face, and continued.

  ‘The flow of life splinters in many different directions. Thakuma says that the victims of the gallows search desperately for the pieces of their own self in the cellar below. Some lie scattered there. Some are crushed under the feet of those who get down there to take the body out.’

  She looked unwaveringly at me for some time.

  ‘He was a great man for cracking jokes. His father was a Madrasi; they are known for their sense of humour.’

  She picked up the remote.

  ‘Especially when it is about women and others, people they think are lower!’

  Casting a brief glance at the scene that appeared on the screen, she turned to me. I liked this woman whose whole demeanour was gracious and dignified. Instead of possessing the self-hatred and inferiority of women who rent out their bodies to men, she was as energetic and joyful as a girl of sixteen who was constantly courted and constantly in love.