The Blue Umbrella

Have you ever had any attachment to anything like your favorite toy car or your brand, new, expensive doll? Well, how would you imagine an attachment to an umbrella?! Not just any umbrella, the blue umbrella. Binya, whose real name is Binyadevi, is a sturdy but beautiful mountain girl who lives with her mother and her brother Bijju, whose real name is Vijay, in a village a couple of miles from the town of Tehri. The village shopkeeper is a vain and untrustworthy man called Ram Bharosa, which means Ram the trustworthy, who is quite the opposite of his name. He is jealous of others in the village for having better things than him while he is the richest man in the village. For example, if a child wants a toffee from his shop, Ram Bharosa offers it on a buy-now-pay-later basis. By the end of the month, the child realizes that he or she has bought more sweets than he or she can pay for, so Ram Bharosa confiscates the things precious to them as payment. When Binya receives a beautiful, dainty, blue umbrella in return for her jaguar claw, Ram Bharosa is filled with envy and does all he can to obtain the umbrella. Some of his tactics include bribing and maybe stealing. But with such a kind heart like Binya’s, this story cannot have a sad ending.

Ruskin Bond is a great writer who grew up in India and has written many stories about life on the mountains. There is even a movie based on this story called The Blue Umbrella in Hindi. Be sure to watch and read!