The Blue Umbrella : Ruskin Bond

BOOK  TITLE: The Blue Umbrella

AUTHOR: Ruskin Bond

YEAR OF PUBLICATION:1974

GENRE: Novel, Literary Fiction

NUMBER OF PAGES: 83

SUMMARY:

The Blue Umbrella is a short novel, but the kind of moral lessons it teaches to us are simply overwhelming.

This is a tale about Binya, a poor little girl living in a small hilly village of Garhwal with her mother and the elder brother, Bijju. One day she stumbles across some city people enjoying the picnic in the valley while herding two cows back home. She is pleased to see them richer and well-groomed. She is eager to be one like them and a blue frilly umbrella catches her eye among several other items. She continues to hunger for it. At the other side, her innocent charm and the pendant in her neck attracts the city people. The pendant is the claw of the leopard – which is commonly considered as a lucky charm in the hills. Binya trade off the blue umbrella for her pendant. The blue umbrella is so stunning that it soon becomes a topic of conversation for villagers and kids love her umbrella so much that they feel like touching it or carrying it. Binya is on seventh heaven and rarely closes it because when it's opened she thinks it looks more charming.

Ram Bharosa runs a small shop where without a refrigerator he sells food products, grocery, and soft drinks. The umbrella envies him so much that he wants to own it at any price. So, he's extending a plan to purchase the Binya umbrella. But she rejects the bid. The rejection pushes him away. He is recruiting a boy from the neighbouring village very soon to work at his store. When she's out in the forest collecting quills of porcupines, the boy being faithful to him steals the umbrella from Binya.

Ironically, the boy is caught by Bijju. When the boy reveals Ram Bharosa’s name behind the stealing, the villagers ostracize him and also stop visiting his shop. As a result, Ram Bharosa suffers a loss and his livelihood comes on the verge of end.

Binya feels sad about Ram Bharosa’s situation and she reproaches herself for his suffering. Next, she donates her umbrella to Ram Bharosa. In return, Ram gifts her pendant with a bear’s claw in it, which is considered even luckier than of leopard’s.

CHARACTER SKETCH:

The novel revolves around Binya and her little beautiful blue umbrella; however we also see some other interesting characters like, Bijju, Ram Bharosa, and a boy named Rajaram.

v  BINYA

Binya is a hilly girl aged 11. Binya likes wandering through the mountains and in the remote valleys. She's not afraid of darkness, trees, and tree climbing. She always loves freedom, so if cows go out with her, she never yells at them, nor holds them back from going here and there. She truly seems to be lost inside herself.

One day when she encounters some city picnickers, she discovers that people in the city have all kinds of lifestyles and happiness. They are rich and possess good things, such as a blue umbrella. From a distance she looks at them – this means she doesn't like being around them. Hilly people also do not want to mingle with the crowd. Often, when she's at bazaar she feels anxious. Binya is not greedy: we can tell when people in town were trying to buy her tiger-claw pendant for five rupees. She decided instead to get the blue umbrella for the tiger-claw pendant.

Another thing of Binya is she's a kindhearted person. She allows the village kids to hold her umbrella for a brief period. She lets him keep the blue umbrella at one instance while Bijju is offering her berries. One windy evening, when her umbrella is swept away into a ravine by the wind, she follows it cautiously with a strong mental presence and gets it out of the cherry tree. She was clearly not afraid of something.

Her relationship with the tea-shop owner Ram Bharosa goes sour when he tries to hold her blue umbrella in an unjust way. Ram Bharosa's shop business declines after that incident and Binya feels guilty for his loss.

Though Binya is an ordinary girl, like most of the children her age, but her virtues like compassion and kindheartedness and boldness makes her stand out from the crowd.

v  BIJJU

Bijju’s real name is Vijay Kumar, but in the foothills of Himalaya it is a custom to call people by their nicknames, for Binyadevi it is Binya, and for Vijay Kumar it is Bijju.

Bijju is a 12-year-old boy and wears a leopard claw in his neck like his ten-year-old younger sister Binya. Though we see that sister and brother have good understanding and affection, they still vary in temperament. Binya is sweet to the Neelu and Gori cows, while Bijju is somewhat hot-tempered boy. For this cause he herds the cows fiercely for home whenever it's late. In comparison, Binya and Bijju share each other's viands. This is obvious when Bijju and Binya share his blue berries. They also regularly visit a small shop in Ram Bharosa to buy toffees or something to eat.

Another feature of Bijju is that every day he goes to school showing himself to be responsible and taking an interest in education. Like Binya, Bijju is not afraid of darkness, dark jungles, wild animals, snakes and he's fully immune bees.

Coming to his social duties, he was tilling lands to sow rice during the monsoon. During the rainy season, when he is not going to school, he sells milk to a few people in the village. Binya and Bijju are fatherless and somewhere Bijju is conscious of this reality. He never does something that upsets his mother and Binya alike. He doesn't shy away from taking care of his younger sister and parents. When Rajaram, the boy who works for Ram Bharosa, steals and tries to run away with the blue umbrella of Binya, it’s Bijju who chases him and gets the umbrella back.

v  RAM BHAROSA

Coming to Ram Bharosa, his name means ‘Ram the trustworthy’. He is a middle-aged shopkeeper, perhaps not very old. He owns a tea stall. He also allows people or students to take items on credit and charges them extra at the time of measurement and when they are unable to pay he snatches some of their valuable things for his personal use or for sale at his shop. He was gourmand.

Ram Bharosa is greedy for the blue umbrella, he wants to have it, so he offers Binya a price of twelve rupees but in vain. Soon after monsoon he keeps a boy called Rajaram from a neighboring village as an assistant at is store. Being extra-smart, Rajaram agrees to steal the umbrella for him at the cost of three rupees. Ram Bharosa hesitantly accepts.

Contrary to their scheme he gets caught while stealing the umbrella. In the village the word spread that Ram Bharosa tried to forcibly get the umbrella, using immoral methods. People stopped coming to his store, as honesty is among the most valued virtues in the hills and he offended it.

Upon seeing the wretched state of Ram Bharosa, Binya wants to help him. And she gives him the umbrella one day, and walks away. This helps to make his reputation stronger in the village. To return this favor, Ram Bharosa gets made a pendant of bear’s claw and gifted her, considered to be even luckier than that of a leopard or tiger.

In the end, we see that it is the love and kindness of Binya that .helps Ram Bharosa to recover his small shop business. On the other hand, learning the lesson from little girl Binya, Ram Bhaross gets back on the honesty line.

CONCLUSION:

I thought that the story's main theme was to make everyone satisfied with the things you love most. Renunciation of the stuff that we love is difficult.

She was always ready with her smile, and would willingly have lent it to anyone who was feeling unhappy.

 BOOK RECOMMENDATION: 4.5/5