I Am an Executioner by Rajesh Parameswaran Page A

that desolate office building, and so there are some who will always have doubts—who will cling to their versions with the same shiftless confidence with which those cows stood waiting under the midday sun, dulled to their own fate or anyone else’s—and who will never believe what happened when Manju looked down, and followed the sure movements of Dr. Gopalarajan’s fingers, and smiled.

FOUR RAJESHES
    DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION, RAJESH , to this yellowed photograph you purchased in a South Indian antiques market, a portrait of my own distinguished self: a turn-of-the-century Brahmin standing outside a mud-walled train station, wearing a crisp white vaishti edged in gold and a dark shut-coat buttoned smartly to the neck. My handsome face is capped with a majestic white turban; in my stern gaze and thin, unsmiling lips, you detect an autocratic temperament and anxious dignity reminding you of certain men in your own extended family. Around my neck, a garland of roses lies heavily, and the markings on my forehead show that, like you, I am an Iyer. Moreover, my name—P. Rajarajeshwaran Iyer—written across the portrait in a fine hand beneath my feet, seems a version of your own. (A grander version, to be sure.) Yet another coincidence: Painted on the building behind me, in block English letters, above some fuzzy chalk marks, is the word ROMBACHINNAPATTINAM —the name of your own ancestral village.
    Who was I, you wonder? Some distant ancestor, some early echo of yourself? What were my days like? To answer you: I was manager of Rombachinnapattinam’s first rail station, and, for all our similarities, my life was nothing like yours. For one, I lived in Rombachinnapattinam, a hamlet that had changedbut little—prior to the introduction of the railroad—in its four hundred years of existence. The things you care about had nothing, and yet everything, to do with me. What do I mean? Allow me to tell you, in explanation, about a singular and profound incident in my life, to wit, my relationship with a peculiar young clerk in my office, to whom I will refer simply as R. (
Allow me
to tell you? My dear boy, having imagined my voice into existence, you give me little choice!)
    I was still new to my post when I met R. I sat writing at my desk and spied him peeking awkwardly into my office door. He stood there in vaishti and topknot, his face round with boyfat, barefoot and totally shirtless. He was a Brahmin, clearly, but a poorer sort than I. At once, I took him for one of the countless busybodies and bores who loitered at the station of a lazy afternoon to watch the
Madras Mail
arrive, pause briefly, and depart, and I was a little peeved that my attendant and factotum, Dhananjayan Rajesupriyan, had not intercepted the lad, to direct him on to the platform where he should more properly have waited. Little did I know what impact this humble visitor would have on my life! But at the time, I fancied myself too busy to give him more than an irritated thought. I called out curtly, “Can I help you?”
    He did not answer, but continued, annoyingly, to stand there.
    “Young man, the
Madras Mail
arrives at three thirty-eight. You are early.”
    He shyly shook his head. At this point, thoroughly distracted from my work—I was preparing a letter, tactful but firm, to my nominal supervisor, who was also my fiancée’s uncle, the Manager of Outbound Trains and Village Personnel in Madras, petitioning him hastily to fill the position of administrative secretary in my office, a post that had been too long vacant, resulting in my having to perform such unpleasant tasks as penning with my own hand these letters of complaint, rather than dictating them, as would be more becoming to someone of myposition—thoroughly distracted, I rose and approached my visitor. (By the way, there is no such thing as a “Manager of Outbound Trains.” You are taking strange liberties. Anyway, let it be.)
    When I approached him, R. folded his hands in respectful