Click to play videoMeerut: The only mark of a hangman in a small house in Meerut are the ropes Mammu Singh once picked up from jail to fix his cot.
The hands that have sealed many fates are busy this Thursday tending to his grandchildren.
Forty years as the Government's official executioner and Mammu has learnt to ignore the morbidity of it. He only focuses on the mechanics involved.
"One needs to put ghee and boric acid on the rope so that nook stays loose then and becomes tight later. One also needs to first check the hanging gear and attach the rope properlys according to the weight of the. If his weight is 50 kg, fill sand bags and make sure the rope doesn't break," says he.
Mammu has acquired this skill from his father Kallu ram, the chief executioner during the 1989 hanging of Indira Gandhi's assassinators at Tihar.
Kallu is dead now and it's Mammu who may be called to Tihar this time. So is he ready?
"If they call me, I'll surely go," says he.
The last time Mammu accompanied a man to the gallows was nearly 10 years ago, but this 61 year old hangman can't wait to get back on duty.
For Mammu Singh, there is little remorse at what he does - only a sense of carrying out justice.
"I feel happy that there will be one criminal less on this Earth. Crime will not end surely, but at least one criminal will go. If there are even one or two hangings in a year, it will put the fear back in the hearts of the criminals," says Mammu.
Interestingly, the paltry fee Rs 150 per hanging is nothing more than an urban legend for Mammu earns Rs 1,000 per hanging, along with a daily allowance, which often tallies to Rs 2,500.
Add to that a monthly salary of Rs 1,500 and Mammu isn't unhappy. The only people complaining are his grandsons.
"It's not in my heart to do it. My brother does it. It's good for him. But Rs 1,500 is not even enough to pay for my grandfather's medicines," says Mammu's grandson Ashwani Singh.
Ashwani is just one of the many children from a family of hangmen, unwilling to carry on this grim legacy.
There are no real estimates of the number of hangmen in the country today as most of them are not on Government or prison rolls. Even the largest jail, Tihar, has no official executioner, so the likes of Mammu maybe a dying breed afterall.
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