8/13/2019 Report on Kim
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Kim and Real Life
I really enjoyed reading Kim. It is a great story describing
India, not from a superficialpoint of view, but from how things
happen in the country behind the scenes. It is written fromthe
perspective of a young teenager, Kim, and shows three years of his
life and the adventuresthat take place during this time mixing
battles, Tibetan monks, the life of Sahibs and themysterious Great
Game.
I read most of Kim after my trip to India, and I saw a few links
between it and my trip. Ialso did a bit of research and found that
the story has quite a few connections to the life of itsauthor,
Rudyard Kipling.
These are a few of the links between the story of Kim and the
life of Rudyard Kipling:They were both born in India, but Kipling
left at age five. When Kipling returned at age 16, hewent to
Lahore, the city where Kim grows up and where the book begins.
While in India, Kiplingvisited Simla for summer breaks, another
place where Kim went, and he used the train (or te-rain) like Kim.
Other links include Mahabub Ali, one of the main characters, being
a real person
that the author met, and the man in the wonder house was
extremely similar to Kiplings father. I did not see as many
connections with my own trip, although I wholeheartedly agreewith
Kim about one o f his observations: Benares struck [Kim] as a
peculiarly filthy city 1. As inthe book, I also found that religion
was extremely important in India. Much of daily life is used
forpraying, appeasing the gods and practising rituals so that you
are not cursed.
Something that I did not see during my trip that took a big part
of the book was whenKim meets people. He grew up in India, is
extremely smart at getting what he wants and is verywitty so he
ends up learning the people he meets whole life story and becomes
their best friendin a few minutes. When we went to India, we went
as tourists, so we did not talk a lot with thenatives. The
exception was when we were on the train, we did exactly what he was
so good atdoing.
Kim was very well written, and shows Kipling had a deep
understanding of life in India.He includes many allusions and
metaphors to show how different a place India is compared tothe
Western world.
A few quotes that I like from K im : The Woman of Shamlegh had
given [the money] to him; a nd it was only fair, he argued, thather
men should earn it back again 2. till Kim, who had loved him
without reason, now loved him for fifty good reasons 3. and Kim
kindly allowed a village of hillmen to acquire merit by giving him
a rough blanket -coat 4.
my soul was darkened, and the boat of my soul rocked upon the
waters of illusion5
.
1 Kipling, Rudyard. Kim. United Kingdom: Macmillan & Co.
Ltd,1901. iBooks. Web. October 30, 2013p.458 2 Kipling, Rudyard.
op. cit. pg.652 3 Kipling, Rudyard. op. cit. pg.523 4 Kipling,
Rudyard. op. cit. pg.566 5 Kipling, Rudyard. op. cit. pg.636
