Hangman's Journal

They say that the hangman's job is an art.Positioning the knot under the prisoner's ear is the most important part of the job;get it exactly right and there's not a quiver from the rope except for that little jerk at the drop,when his neck breaks.A few millimetres off, and the man's neck does not break;he dies of strangulation,slowly painfully. Written with rare power and unflinching directness,this is a compelling,often unsettling account of a life of great psychological and moral complexity. The real life story of the Hangman working for the king of Travancore,a small pre-independence South Indian kingdom unfolds in full detail.Each time he returned from the gallows,he told himself that it would be the last time.But he went back,a hundred and seventeen times.He did what he was ordered to do and shut out difficult memories,till an encounter with a writer almost a quarter century after his last hanging forced him to confront his past. This Book takes us into the mind of a Man struggling to come to terms with his Dharma,his conscience,and his shame.