Heres a virtual movie of the great Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) reading his wonderfuly wise and much loved ode to the pecking order the poem "Gunga Din" .
"Gunga Din" (1892) is one of Rudyard Kipling's most famous poems, perhaps best known for its often-quoted last stanza,
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nza, "Tho' I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer (a "bhisti") who saves the soldier's life but dies himself. Like several Kipling poems, it celebrates the virtues of a non-European while revealing the racism of a colonial infantryman who views such people as being of a "lower order". The poem was published as one of the set of martial poems called the Barrack-Room Ballads.
Influence
The name "Gunga Din" is sometimes used in the musical instrument world; brass instruments, particularly bugles, of low or questionable quality produced in India are often called "Gunga Din" horns, as well as "junkers", or more appropriately, "wall-hangers
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 18 January 1936) was an English author and poet. Born in Bombay, British India (now Mumbai), he is best known for his works The Jungle Book (1894) and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1902), his novel, Kim (1901); his poems, including Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), If— (1910); and his many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888). He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story";[2] his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works speak to a versatile and luminous narrative gift.[3][4] Kipling was one of the most popular writers in English, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are rsserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2008
Gunga Din..........
You may talk o' gin and beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
Now in Injia's sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
He was "Din! Din! Din!
"You limpin' lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din!
"Hi! Slippy hitherao!
"Water, get it! Panee lao
"You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din."
Author: poetryanimations
Keywords: poem animation Rudyard Kipling joyce yeats sandburg belloc chesterton ts eliot macniece wilfred owen sassoon mccrae alan seeger poetry poet war india raj
Added: March 4, 2009
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