Unit 3A HangingA HANGING George Orwell1. It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Eachcell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and apot for drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to behanged within the next week or two. Detailed Reading2. One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man,with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets,while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tightly to his sides. They crowded very close about him,with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.3. Eight oclock struck and a bugle call floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily proddingthe gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound. For Gods sake hurry up, Francis, he said irritably. The man ought to have been dead by this time. Arent you ready yet?4. Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles,waved his black hand. Yes sir, yes sir, he bubbled. All is satisfactorily prepared. The hangman is waiting. We shall proceed.5. Well, quick march, then. The prisoners cant get their breakfast till this jobs over.6. We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed behind.7. It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men whogripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.8. It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle I saw themystery,theunspeakable wrongness,of cuttinga life short whenit is infulltide.Thisman wasnotdying,he was alivejustas we arealive. All the organs ofhisbodywereworking - bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming - alltoiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop,whenhewasfallingthroughtheair witha tenth ofa second tolive. Hiseyes sawtheyellowgraveland the graywalls,andhisbrainstillremembered,foresaw, reasoned-reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone - one mind less, one world less.9. The gallows stood in a small yard. The hangman, a gray-haired convict in the whiteuniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more closely than ever, half led half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsilyup the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and fixed the rope around the prisoners neck.10. We stood waiting, five yards away. The warders had formed a rough circle round the gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out to his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell.11. The hangman climbed down and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes seemed topass. The steadycryingfromthe prisonerwentonand on, Ram!Ram! Ram!neverfaltering for an instant. The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking thegroundwith hisstick; perhapshe was countingthecries, allowingtheprisonera fixednumber- fifty,perhaps,ora hundred. Everyonehad changedcolor.The Indians hadgone gray like bad co