Monday, April 23, 2012

Rudyard Kipling "Gunga Din"

Heres a virtual movie of the great Rudyard Kipling reading his much loved poem "Gunga Din" a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer (a "Bhishti") who saves the soldier's life but dies himself. The last line suggests a deep-down unease of conscience about the prevailing views of natural hierarchies, both in the depicted soldier and in Kipling himself.[neutrality is disputed][citation needed] The poem was published in 1892 as one of the set of martial poems called the Barrack-Room Ballads.

In stark contrast to Kipling's later poem "The White Man's Burden," Gunga Din is named after the native, and portrays the native Indian as the hero while the British soldiers are portrayed as callous and shallow, and ultimately inferior to Gunga Din.

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