I Am an Executioner by Rajesh Parameswaran Page B

greeting. I realized that he was not a mere boy, as I had first suspected. In fact, only a couple of years separated us.
    “Namaskaram, sir,” he said. “My name is Rombachinnapattinam R., father being Rombachinnapattinam N———, grandfather being Rombachinnapattinam V———. I am knocking on doors of kindly recommended Brahmin professionals because—”
    “Yes, yes.”
    “—because I am badly in need of a job to feed myself and my good mother—”
    “Your good mother …”
    “My good mother, good sir, and my good wife, myself being recently engaged for marriage. Being recently engaged, good sir, I do not know what to do, and come humbly to you for guidance and the generosity of your good offices, as I have been highly recommended by the late Dr. T. Lumbodharan, headmaster of Rombachinnapattinam Higher Secondary School, who had oftentimes told me that the order and capacities of my mind are not those of the average or commonplace person.”
    “The order and capacities of … dear fellow, do speak slowly!”
    “Good sir. My name is Rombachinnapattinam R. Father being Rombachinnapattinam N———. Grandfather being Rombachinnapattinam V———.”
    “Good God.”
    “Good sir!”
    “Ha!”
    Immediately, I forced a cough to mask my impetuous guffaw. A sweaty, twice nervous, villagey youth like R. come begging atmy office would normally have earned from me a brief hearing and a curt dismissal. But there was something about this hapless fellow that made me a little hesitant to show him the door too quickly. I felt an unaccountable warmth toward him. His pitiable shyness, his touching excitement on meeting a man so far above him in accomplishment and station—a nervousness that amounted to a strange exuberance, his simple courage in thus approaching me, and the fact that he was a needy Brahmin and had been recommended by my own late headmaster—all this disposed me to deal gently with the odd fellow. He stood before me with hands clasped meekly on his ample stomach, looking up with large, beseeching eyes. A drop of sweat rolled in and out of the furrowed flesh of his brow, wormed its wet way down the crest of his capable nose, and hung for one pendulous moment.
    Before it completed its descent, I had made an impetuous decision. “How is your handwriting, young man?” I asked him.
    “Quite legible, sir,” he replied.
    And on the spot, I hired him as my secretary. After conveying to him the particulars of the job, I asked him to report the following morning, presentably, in shirt and sandals.
    Why did I take such a decision? It was one of those moments when the electric current of instantaneous affection arranges in its circuit a haphazard constellation of objective facts, arranges them in one’s mind into an apprehension or intuition, that is less than a reasoned judgment but more than a whim, but which has the feeling of a definite conclusion.
    In short, I have no idea why I took the decision. But I had no qualms about my choice, and I called for Dhananjayan Rajesupriyan to bring us tea, as a sort of celebration. Dhananjayan had been outside sweeping the platform, and when he came in carrying a platter with two steaming tumblers, he glanced at portly young R. sitting across from me, and promptly spilled the scalding tea all over my desk, soaking my moot half-finished letter, and sending warm dribbles onto R.’s lap.
    Such clumsiness was unlike Dhananjayan, so, rather thanthrash him, I only twisted his ear until he yelped. Then I apologized to R. with profusion, and the good man good-naturedly took his leave.
    Dhananjayan Rajesupriyan was a lad of nineteen. A Vaishya from a poor and backward family of tinsmiths, he had been with me since the opening of our railroad station in 1908, some twelve months previous, an event which truly was the most exciting occasion in the memory of our southern village of Rombachinnapattinam. True, it was not much of a station—a mud hut with one large office, and a