Debalina’s Reviews > Kim > Status Update

"...; and if there were any doubt it needed only to watch the wives comparing, brown arm against brown arm, the newly purchased dull glass bracelets that come from the North-West."

लाख़ की चूड़ीयाँ?
(Bangles of "laakh"?)

The sad description of an imperialist of colonial India. Should I be angry or should I be heartbroken?

"No 'native training' can quench' the white man's horror' of the serpent."

~ a romanticising narrator on his own subject that he is romanticising about.

So, quite inherent was the brand of racism of the less biased, much younger and inquisitive Kipling. I guess the inquisitive angle was the reason behind his fame among those inherently racist, as was thy Western world then, still is, but in a more nuanced manner.

Rusty somewhere forgave his Kipling for "the white man's burden". I cam try to understand him. Forgiving him is not my domain. Criticising him can be. I might be keeping a list of lines that are very explicitly racist.

Reading it was difficult. But it is my favourite Rusty’s favourite book perhaps. This book has had so much influence on my dearest Ruskin Bond. So I had to give it as many honest efforts as it demanded. Only the second big one worked. It is now picking up on me.