English MA - January Night
Storyboard Text
- Halku is a tenant farmer and works on the land of his landlord. He lives with his wife, Munni. Halku suffers under the debts of poverty. He has many debts left to pay off. All the money that he earns goes to pay up the arrears.
- The landlord had come for the rent. Halku told Munni to get the rupees she had set aside. There was only 3 rupees which they had saved for Halku to buy a blanket for the January nights when he has to sleep in the fields to keep the animals away. At first Munni refused but Halku was good at coaxing her wife so she gave the money.
- Halku took the money and went outside. He looked as though he was tearing his hearing his heart and giving it away. He had saved the rupees pice by pice from his work, for a blanket. He was going to throw it away. Now he had to spend the night in the cold without a blanket.
- Close to Halku's field there was a mango grove. Halku thought, ‘If I go and get a pile of leaves I can make a tire of them and keep warm. If anybody sees me gathering the leaves in the dead of night they’ll think it’s a ghost. Of course there’s a chance some animal’s hidden in my field waiting, but I can’t stand sitting here any longer.’ He ripped up some stalks from a nearby field, made a broom out of them and picking up a lighted cow dung cake went toward the grove.
- Halku lay on a bamboo cot wrapped up in his old shawl shivering. His friend dog, Jabra, was whimpering with his muzzle pressed to his belly. Jabra put his paws on Halku's knees and brought his mule close. When Halku couldn't bear it anymore, he picked up Jabra and got him to fall asleep on his lap. The dog's body gave of a stink but Halku experienced a happiness he hadn't felt in months. Suddenly Jabra picked up the noise of some animal. He ran out and began to bark.
- Jabra watched him coming and ran to him wagging his tail. Halku said, ‘I couldn’t stand it any more, Jabra. Come along, let’s go into the orchard and gather leaves to warm up with. When we’re toasted we’ll come back and sleep. The night’s still far from over.’ After a while Jabra gave a loud bark and ran toward the field. Halku realized that this meant a pack of wild animals had probably broken into the field. Then again there was the sound of munching and crunching in the field. He could not have been mistaken this time. It really hurt to think about getting up from where he was. It was so comfortable there that it seemed intolerable to go to the field in this cold.
- When he woke in the morning the sun was high and Munni was saying, ‘Do you think you’re going to sleep all day! You came out here and had a fine time while the whole field was being flattened!’ Halku got up and said, ‘Then you’ve just come from the field!’ ‘Yes, it’s all ruined. And you could sleep like that! Why did you bother to put up the shelter anyway?’ Munni said, ‘Now you’ll have to hire yourself out to earn some money to pay off the rent and taxes.’ With a contented smile Halku said, ‘But I won’t have to sleep nights out here in the cold.’
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