Silent Conversations in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and Ruskin Bond’s Rusty novels

Abstract

The essay undertakes an analysis of the connections and conversations between Rudyard Kipling’s Kim(1901) and Ruskin Bond’s largely autobiographical Rusty(1955-) novels. Kipling’s Kimhas evoked many literary responses and reactions across India. While writers such as Sarath Kumar Ghosh, Rabindranath Tagore, T.N. Murari,and even Sashi Tharoor have boldly written back to Kim, Ruskin Bond silently acknowledgesit in his Rusty series of children’s fiction. At times, Bond’s pointed and conscious avoidance ofKipling becomes his means of accepting Kipling’s influence on him. The essay traces the implicit dialogue between thesetwo Anglo-Indian authorsand their protagonists.It undertakes a close reading of theirnovelsto analysethe evolution of English literature and Anglo-Indianism in India, whilealsoexaminingthe divided identities of the authors and their fictional protagonists.