Vanka

 

1 Nine year old Vanka Zhukov, who had been apprenticed  three months ago to Alyakhin the shoemaker, did not go to bed on Christmas eve. He waited till his master and mistress and the senior apprentices had gone to church, and then took from the cupboard a bottle of ink and a pen with a rusty nib,spread out a crumpled sheet of paper, and was all ready to write. Before tracing the first letter, he glanced several times anxiously at the door and window, peered at the dark  icon, with shelves holding cobbler's lasts stretching on either side of it,and gave a quivering sigh. The paper lay on the bench, and Vanka knelt on the floor at the bench

2 ‘Dear Grandad Konstantin Makarich,.

‘I am writing a letter to you. I send you Christmas greetings and hope God will send you his blessings. I have no Father and no Mummie and you are all I have left.’

 3 Vanka raised his eyes to the dark window -pane,in which the reflection of the candle flickered. In his imagination he distinctly saw his grand dad, Konstantin Makarich. He was a night watchman on the estate of some gentle folk called Zhivarev. He was small, lean, old,man about sixty five, but remarkably lively and agile with a smiling face and eyes bleary with drink. In the day time he either slept at the kitchen or sat joking with the cook and kitchen-maids. In the night he wrapped himself in a great sheepskin coat, walked round and round the estate, sounding his rattle. Two dogs, Eel and Kashtanka would follow him with drooping  heads. Eel was named on account of his black coat and long weasel-like body. He was wonderfully respectful and insinuating . He had the same  appealing glance on friends and strangers alike, but he inspired confidence in no one. His deferential manner and docility were pretexts for his cunningness and hostility. He was adept at stealing up to snap at a foot, creeping into the ice -house, or snatching a peasant's chicken. His hind legs had been slashed again and again twice he had been strung up, he was beaten with an inch of his life every week, but he survived it all.

4 Grandad was probably standing at the gate at this moment, screwing up his eyes to look at the bright red light coming from the church windows, or stumping about in his felt boots, fooling with the servants. His rattle would be fastened to his belt. He would be throwing out his arms and hugging himself against the cold, or, with his old man's titter, pinching a maid, or one of the cooks. ‘Have a nip,’ he would say, holding out his snuffbox to the women. The women would take a pinch and sneeze. Grandfather would be overcome with delight, breaking out into jolly laughter, and shouting:

‘Good for frozen noses!’

5 Even the dogs would be given snuff. Kashtanka would sneeze, shake her head and walk away, offended. But Eel, too polite to sneeze, would wag his tail. And the weather was glorious. The air still, transparent and fresh.It was a dark night, but the whole village with its white  roofs, the smoke rising from the chimneys, the trees, silver with rime, the snow-drifts, could be seen distinctly. The sky was sprinkled with gaily twinkling stars, and the Milky Way stood out as clearly as if newly scrubbed for the holiday and polished with snow....

6 Vanka sighed, dipped his pen in the ink, and went on writing: ‘And yesterday I had such a hiding . The master took me by the hair and dragged me out into the yard and beat me with the stirrup-strap because by mistake I went to sleep while rocking their baby. And one day last week the mistress told me to gut a herring and I began from the tail and she picked up the herring and rubbed my face with the head. The other apprentices make fun of me, they send me to the tavern for vodka and make me steal the master's cucumbers and the master beats me with the first thing he finds. And there is nothing to eat. They give me bread in the morning and gruel for dinner and in the evening bread again, but I never get tea or cabbage soup. They gobble it all up And they make me sleep in the passage and when their baby cries,I don't get any sleep at all. I have to rock it.Dear Grandad, for the dear Lord’s sake take me away from here. Take me home to the village. I can't bear it any longer. Oh! Grandad, I beg and implore you and I will always pray for you, do take me away from here or I'll die. . . .’

7 Vanka's lips twitched,he rubbed his eyes with a black fist and gave a sob.I will grind your snuff for you,’ he went on. ‘I will pray for you and you can flog me as hard as you like if I am naughty. And if you think there is nothing for me to do I will ask the steward to take pity on me and let me clean the boots or I will go as a shepherd-boy instead of Fedya. Dear Grandad I can't stand it. It is killing me. I thought I would run away on foot to the village but I have no boots and I am afraid of the frost. And when I grow up to be a man I will look after you and I will not let anyone hurt you and when you die I will pray for your soul like I do for my Mummie.’

8 Moscow is such a big town. There are so many gentlemen's houses and such a lot of horses and no sheep and the dogs are not a bit fierce. The boys in the town don't roam the streets with stars and they don't allow one to sing in church at Christmas. They were also seen selling fishing hooks that could even hold a sheat fish weighing thirty pounds. There are shops that have all sorts of guns just like the ones the master has at home. They must cost a hundred roubles each. In the butchers' shops they sell grouse , wood-cock and hares about which they don't say where they were shot.

9 ‘Dear Grandad when they have a Christmas tree at the big house take a gilded nut for me and put it away in the green chest. Ask Miss Olga Ignatyevna, tell her it's for Vanka.’

10 Vanka gave a sharp sigh and once more gazed at the windowpane. He remembered his grandfather going to  get a Christmas tree for the gentry and taking his  grandson with him. Oh, what happy times those had been! Grandfather would give a chuckle, and the frost-bound wood chuckled, and Vanka, following their example, chuckled, too. Before chopping down the fir-tree, Grandfather would smoke a pipe, take a long pinch of snuff, and laugh at the shivering Vanka... The young fir-trees, coated with frost, stood motionless, waiting to see which one of them was to die. And suddenly a hare would come leaping over a snow-drift, swift as an arrow. Grandfather could never help shouting:

‘Stop it, stop it . . . stop it! Oh, you stub-tailed devil!’

11 Grandfather would drag the tree to the big house,and they would start decorating it... Miss Olga Ignatyevna, Vanka's favourite, was the busiest of all. While Pelageya, Vanka's mother, was alive and in service at the big house, Olga Ignatyevna used to give Vanka sweets, and amuse herself by teaching him to read,write and count to a hundred, and even to dance the quadrille . But when Pelageya died, the orphaned Vanka was sent down to the back kitchen to his grandfather,and from there to Moscow, to Alyakhin the shoemaker....

12 ‘Come to me dear Grandad,’ continued Vanka. ‘I beg you for Christ's sake take me away from here. Pity me unhappy orphan they beat me all the time and I am always hungry and I am so miserable here. I can't tell you I cry all the time. And one day the master hit me over the head with a last and I fell down and thought I would never get up again. I have such a miserable life worse than a dog's. And I send my love to Alyona, one-eyed Yegor and the coachman and don't give my concertina to anyone. I remain, your grandson Ivan Zhukov. Dear Grandad, do come.’

13 Vanka folded the sheet of paper in four and put it into an envelope which he had bought the day before for a kopek. Then he paused to think, dipped his pen into the ink-pot and wrote: ‘To Grandfather in the village,’scratched his head, thought again, then added:

‘TO KONSTANTIN MAKARICH’.

14 Pleased that no one had prevented him from writing,he put on his cap and ran out into the street without putting his coat on over his shirt. The men at the butcher's told him, when he asked them the day before,that letters are put into letter-boxes, and from these boxes sent all over the world on mail coaches with three horses and drunken drivers and jingling bells.

Vanka ran as far as the nearest letter-box and dropped his precious letter into the slit.

15 An hour later, lulled by rosy hopes, he was fast asleep. He dreamed of a stove. On the stove-ledge sat his grandfather, his bare feet dangling, reading the letter to the cooks.... Eel was walking backwards and forwards in front of the stove, wagging his tail.... 

   Words and their meanings are from https://www.hsslive.guru/kerala-syllabus-10th-standard-english-solutions-unit-5-chapter-1/

According to Vanka, what kind of a person is Konstantin Makarich?

Do you justify Makarich’s decision to send Vanka away to Moscow? Why?

Konstantin Makarich is a night watchman on the estate of the Zhivarev family. He is a small, lean, old

man about sixty five years of age. He is remarkably lively and agile with a smiling face and eyes bleary

with drink. He is a fun-loving man. In the day time either he sleeps in the back kitchen or spends time

cracking jokes with the cooks and other kitchen maids. In the night he does his watchman duty walking round and round the estate, sounding his rattle, wearing a large sheepskin coat and felt boots. He has two dogs named Kashtanka and Eel. He will always be in the company of his beloved dogs. He has the habit of snuffing tobacco and he will offer the snuff to kitchen maids and even to his dogs. He enjoys seeing them sneeze, breaking out into jolly laughter.

Makarich’s decision to send Vanka to Moscow was right. We cannot blame the old, innocent and

illiterate man. We are sure that while sending Vanka to Moscow, he must have in his mind only the

thought that his grandchild should learn a trade and earn a living!

Suggest an alternative ending to the story and write it in your own words.

Everyone at Alyakhin’s house treated Vanka cruelly. His life was worse than a dog’s life there.

He wished earnestly to escape from there. So he wrote a letter to his grandfather begging him to

come and save him. When the grandfather read the letter he felt enormously sorry for his mistake

of having sent his grandchild to a cruel person. He determined to save him by any means. He

sought the help of his employer Zhivarev. He was a rich man and had many friends in Moscow

town. He immediately arranged to register a complaint against Alyakhin for abusing children

and ill-treating them as child-labourers at his shoe factory. Soon the police arrested Alyakhin

and saved all children including Vanka. Vanka’s grandfather took him back to their village.

Vanka lived happily with his grandpa helping him in his service at Zhivarev’s estate.

Imagine that there are many children in your locality who have similar experiences like that of Vanka. Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper describing the sad plight of such children and the need to uplift them.

Raj Kumar

Vanmala

Kollam.

15 March 2022

The editor,

The Hindu,

Kollam.

Dear Sir,

I am a tenth standard student and resident of the Vanmala Colony in Kollam town. I would like to bring to your kind attention the evil of child labour that still prevails in our area despite there are many laws in our country to prevent and eradicate it.As we all know children are tomorrow’s citizens . Some 

illiterate and poor parents in our locality send their children to fields instead of sending them to school. In  fields children are exploited both physically and mentally.I request you to prepare a write-up and publish it in your newspaper in order to bring this issue into light and create a social awareness against it.

Thanking you in advance,

Yours faithfully,

Sd/

Raj Kumar

A speech for making the society aware of the evils of child labour.

Honourable chairperson, all the dignitaries present on and off the dais and dear friends:

I am so happy to be here in front of you to speak a few words on child labour and its evil consequences.

We all know that child labour is a crime and it is prohibited by law all over the world. But it still prevails in our society even when there are strict laws against it. What does it show then? It shows the failure of the authorities in enacting the laws effectively.It is vital to enact the laws and at the same time, it is essential to find out the reasons behind the existence of child labour and seek solutions. Then only we can eradicate this social evil once and for all.

When children are employed in factories and fields, they are deprived of their rights. They are denied their education and natural growth. Today’s children are tomorrow’s citizens, but they are abused by profit-craving employers. They have to work harder and longer but are paid meagerly.Some poor and illiterate parents send them to earn instead of sending them to learn.Our authorities must conduct programmes to educate and enlighten such parents and provide them with adequate facilities to send their children to schools.

We all talk and write always against child labour issues, but our words should be reflected in our actions. The government authorities, social servants, teachers, parents and all who despise this social evil should stand together to eradicate child labour from our society. Let’s create a better tomorrow and see all our children go to schools.

Let me conclude my words here and I wish you all a nice day. Thank you.