It is often remarked that Rudyard Kipling loved India but hated Indians. Born in Bombay in 1865, when the British Empire was at its zenith, he was a prolific poet, an author, and the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Kipling was long excoriated as a colonialist, but in recent years, his reputation has partially been rehabilitated.
The realisation has emerged that his literary work, set mostly in India, betrays his deep fondness for the country, representing the legacy of his early years spent growing up there. Nevertheless, at times, he felt rootless. In a comprehensive biography of Kipling, author Andrew Lycett quoted him saying, “England is the most wonderful foreign land I have ever lived in.
” Over the years, several books and research articles have critically analysed the literature corpus he generated. An earlier biography, Rudyard Kipling, A Life , by Harry Ricketts, narrated his life story and brought much information about him to light. Two of his ballads, “East is East” and “The White Man’s Burden,” have become classics.
The Jungle Book is considered among his most popular books. Kipling had acquired a special sentimental bond with India, its culture, traditions, and values, from which he could never free himself. His father, an artist and craftsman, had settled in Bombay in 1865, employed by the School of Art and Industry.
The opening of the Suez Canal greatly accelerated the city's evolution from a sleepy town to the Gateway o.