Kim

“His nickname through the wards was ‘Little Friend of all the World;’ and very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was intrigue, of course—he knew that much, as he had known all evil since he could speak,—but what he loved was the game for its own sake […].”

In this quote, readers are introduced to Kim’s winsomeness, his outlook on the world, and the theme of “the game.” Even when he was a boy, far before any espionage missions, Kim carried out intrigues in the alleys of Lahore.

“‘Who art thou?’

         ‘Thy chela,’ said Kim simply, sitting on his heels. ‘I have never seen anyone like to thee in all this my life. I go with thee to Benares. And, too, I think that so old a man as thou, speaking the truth to chance-met people at dusk, is in great need of a disciple.’”

In this interaction, the lama and Kim converse shortly after meeting each other. The quote illustrates Kim’s boyish forthrightness—as he simply claims the office of disciple for himself—and his optimism and goodwill. He volunteers to join an adventure to far-off Benares simply because he can see that the lama needs someone to help him.

“All India is full of holy men stammering gospels in strange tongues; shaken and consumed in the fires of their own zeal; dreamers, babblers, and visionaries: as it has been from the beginning and will continue to the end.”

This quote is an observation by the narrator, presumably based on Kipling’s own experiences in India. While the depiction is overstated, the overstatement is intentional: Kipling wants to present a picture of India as rich, fervid, and multifaceted. Here his emphasis on religious diversity is evident.

“See, Holy One—the Great Road which is the backbone of all Hind. […] All castes and kinds of men move here. Look! Brahmins and chumars, bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrims and potters—all the world going and coming. It is to me as a river from which I am withdrawn like a log after a flood.”

Kim speaks here, pointing out to the lama the diverse array of characters, drawn from all levels of society, who walk along the Grand Trunk Road in India. One can sense the enthusiasm in Kim’s voice; he enjoys the adventure and variety that come with life on the road. Here he puts his love for the road in terms the lama will understand, comparing it to a river, symbolizing the lama’s quest.

“‘This is a good land—the land of the South!’ said he. ‘The air is good; the water is good. Eh?’

         ‘And they are all bound upon the Wheel,’ said the lama. ‘Bound from life after life. To none of these has the Way been shown.’”

Here we see, directly counterpoised, the perspectives of Kim and the lama. Kim looks out at the vista from the road with optimistic and vibrant energy, and the lama regards it through the lens of Buddhist doctrine, seeing people who are all in spiritual bondage. Though the lama’s perspective comes across as more negative here, the lama himself is one of the most endearing characters in the novel, and Kipling treats his philosophy with honor and sympathy.

“‘As regards that young horse,’ said Mahbub, ‘I say that when a colt is born to be a polo-pony, closely following the ball without teaching—when such a colt knows the game by divination—then I say it is a great wrong to break that colt to a heavy cart, Sahib!’”

In this interaction, Mahbub Ali is speaking to Colonel Creighton about Kim. Being a horse trader, Ali often uses horse metaphors in many conversations. Here Kim is the young horse, whom he attributes with a natural gift for observation and intrigue, and he encourages Creighton not to let the school train him out of those assets.

“‘No man can escape his Kismet. But I am to pray to Bibi Miriam, and I am a Sahib.’ He looked at his boots ruefully. ‘No; I am Kim. This is the great world, and I am only Kim. Who is Kim?’ He considered his own identity, a thing he had never done before, till his head swam. He was one insignificant person in all this roaring whirl of India, going southward to he knew not what fate.”

This is the first passage in which Kim ruminates at length on the question of his identity. He has just been through the upheaval of being separated from his lama and assessed by the chaplains and the colonel, and now he is on the way to the boarding school. Here he deals with questions of destiny and fate (kismet), on the assumption that his ethnicity must determine his beliefs (in this case, since he is white, he thinks he may have to become a Catholic and pray to the Virgin Mary), but he pushes that notion aside to reflect on the fact of his individuality.

“Something I owe to the soil that grew—

                  More to the life that fed—

         But most to Allah Who gave me two

                  Separate sides to my head.

         I would go without shirts or shoes,

                  Friends, tobacco or bread

         Sooner than for an instant lose

                  Either side of my head.”

Each of the chapters in Kim is headed by a snippet of poetry, usually some of Kipling’s own verse from other sources. In this instance, Chapter 8 is headed by two stanzas from Kipling’s poem The Two-Sided Man. This set of lines illustrates the duality of personal identity in someone like Kim, who has grown up in cross-cultural contexts. This duality comes at a cost—the questions about identity that haunt Kim—but, as the poem illustrates, they also give the blessing of having access to wholly different ways of viewing life.

“‘To the madrissah I will go. At the madrissah I will learn. In the madrissah I will be a Sahib. But when the madrissah is shut, then must I be free and go among my people. Otherwise I die!’

         ‘And who are thy people, Friend of all the World?’

         ‘This great and beautiful land,’ said Kim.”

In this quote, Kim expresses to Mahbub Ali his need to be able to travel the roads of India when the school (which he calls a madrissah) is closed at the end of a term. Here, we see Kim’s inherent wanderlust and a fascinating portrayal of his sense of identity. Though Kim often describes himself as “alone,” not belonging to any particular group, there is a sense conveyed in this quote that he belongs to everyone. There is no one culture that he can call his own and no single town or village to claim as home, but the vast totality of India is where he senses he belongs.

“‘Therefore, in one situate as thou art, it particularly behoves thee to remember this with both kinds of faces. Among Sahibs, never forgetting thou art a Sahib; among the folk of Hind, always remembering thou art—’ he paused, with a puzzled smile.

         ‘What am I? Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist? That is a hard knot.’

         ‘Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou wilt be damned. So says my Law—or I think it does. But thou art also my Little Friend of all the World, and I love thee. So says my heart. This matter of creeds is like horseflesh. […] Therefore I say in my heart the Faiths are like the horses. Each has merit in its own country.’”

Mahbub Ali gives Kim advice on how to behave around different groups of people, but he trips himself up when he realizes that he doesn’t know how to advise Kim to be authentic among Indians because Kim does not fit the role of any of the many kinds of people in India. Thus, the quote becomes another expression of the mystery of Kim’s identity while also coming around to the theme of religious diversity, which even Ali, a devout Muslim, acknowledges.

“From time to time, God causes men to be born—and thou art one of them—who have a lust to go abroad at the risk of their lives and discover news—today it may be far-off things, tomorrow of some hidden mountain, and the next day of some near-by men who have done a foolishness against the State. These souls are very few; and of these few, not more than ten are of the best.”

Here Lurgan is speaking to Kim, describing the nature and character of someone whom God fashions to be a spy. Lurgan suggests that Kim is one such person, but the end of his quote—“not more than ten are of the best”—is meant as a direct acknowledgment of the Babu, whom Lurgan counts among that number. Even in matters of geopolitics and state, the characters in Kim tend to speak in terms of spirituality, fate, and divine plans.

“Son, I am wearied of that madrissah, where they take the best years of a man to teach him what he can only learn upon the Road. The folly of the Sahibs has neither top nor bottom.”

Mahbub Ali tells Kim that he thinks it is time for the season of his schooling to be over. The symbol of the road appears, representing as it does the place where all the various people in India mingle together, and Ali believes that Kim can learn more there than in his school. He also expresses a common belief among the native characters in Kim: the folly of Europeans, who never seem to understand how things work in India.

“A very few white people, but many Asiatics, can throw themselves into a mazement as it were by repeating their own names over and over again to themselves, letting the mind go free upon speculation as to what is called personal identity. When one grows older, the power, usually, departs, but while it lasts it may descend upon a man at any moment.

         ‘Who is Kim—Kim—Kim?’”

Here the narrator expounds on Kim’s practice of repeating his name as a way of thinking about his personal identity. This quote illustrates the interweaving themes of personal identity and religion, depicting the exploration of identity as a spiritualistic meditation practice in which one’s name becomes the chant that brings one into a trance.

“‘Go in hope, little brother,’ he said. ‘It is a long road to the feet of the One; but thither do we all travel.’”

This quote comes from a Hindu holy man that Kim meets while going to Benares to reunite with his lama. Here we see (as also in some of Mahbub Ali’s quotes) that the theme of religious diversity, in Kipling’s view, can spill over into a sense of religious relativism: that all religions ultimately aim for the same goal in the end. It is a particularly striking statement coming from the mouth of a Hindu, which in Kim is more often described in terms of polytheism than in the monotheism implied in speaking of “the One.”

“The Search, I say, is sure. If need be, the River will break from the ground before us. I acquired merit when I sent thee to the Gates of Learning, and gave thee the jewel that is Wisdom. […] We are together, and all things are as they were—Friend of all the World—Friend of the Stars—my chela!”

The lama is reunited with Kim and full of hope and confidence for the resumption of their search. This quote illustrates not only the lama’s optimistic outlook (a contrast to his regular refrain of bemoaning the bondage of the world) but also the great affection that continues to exist between himself and Kim.

“‘Chela, this is a great and terrible world.’

         ‘I think it is good,’ Kim yawned.”

The novel is full of many variations of this interaction, both in the first and last sections. The lama’s perspective on the bondage of the world stands in tension with Kim’s perspective on the goodness of what he sees around him.

“‘Then all Doing is evil?’ Kim replied, lying out under a big tree at the fork of the Doon road, watching little ants run over his hand.

         ‘To abstain from action is well—except to acquire merit.’

         ‘At the Gates of Learning we were taught that to abstain from action was unbefitting a Sahib. And I am a Sahib.’

         ‘Friend of all the World, […] We are all souls seeking escape. No matter what thy wisdom learned among Sahibs, when we come to my River thou wilt be freed from all illusion—at my side.’”

Here Kim and the lama converse about a point of Buddhist doctrine, and Kim wonders if it applies to him since he is a white man whose cultural heritage pulls in the opposite direction. The theme of personal identity is inherent in his comment, as he tries to use his status as a sahib to conclude how he should act. However, the lama’s response is not to admit that different cultures may have different ways of doing things but to point out that there are no fundamental differences underneath all the cultural identities we wear.

“‘Well is the Game called great! […] And my share and my joy’—he smiled to the darkness—‘I owe to the lama here. Also to Mahbub Ali—also to Creighton Sahib, but chiefly to the Holy One. He is right—a great and wonderful world—and I am Kim—Kim—Kim—alone—one person—in the middle of it all.’”

Here Kim, thinking as he tries to fall asleep, expresses his theme of life as a game, specifically referring in this instance to the “Great Game” of geopolitical spycraft. He comes around once again to his meditative questions about personal identity. There is a note of irony here as well: even though he describes himself as “alone” and “one person,” as he so often does, he also clearly defines himself relative to other people around him—Ali, Creighton, and the lama—thus showing that he is not truly alone.

“The blow was but a shadow upon a shadow. Evil in itself—my legs weary apace these latter days!—it met evil in me: anger, rage, and a lust to return evil. These wrought in my blood, woke tumult in my stomach, and dazzled my ears. […] But the evil planted in me by that moment’s carelessness works out to its end. Just is the Wheel, swerving not a hair! Learn the lesson, chela.”

In this quote, which illustrates the depth of the lama’s devotion to his spirituality, he expresses regret for how the fight scene played out. Even though he was assaulted, he holds himself to blame because of his angry reaction. In the lama’s eyes, the real story of the fight was not that the foreigner struck him but that he wanted to return evil for evil.

“I meditate. There is a need greater than thou knowest.”

The lama, still speaking to Kim in the aftermath of the fight with the foreigners, insists on meditation as the necessary next step, the way to discern what has gone wrong and what they should do next. This perspective pits Kim’s instinct for action against the lama’s instinct for seeking calm repose. Once again, as in many places throughout the novel, the practice of religion takes on a decisive role in the plot.

“I found him in such a state under a tree in articulo mortem, and he jumped up and walked into a brook and he was nearly drowned but for me. I pulled him out. […] Yes, he might have died, but he is dry now, and asserts he has undergone transfiguration.”

In this quote, Hurree Babu tells Kim his version of the lama’s discovery of the Arrow River. From the Babu’s perspective, the lama was acting crazy, threw himself into a brook, and would have drowned there if he hadn’t intervened; but the novel reveals that the lama believes the incident was nothing less than his entry into the enlightening waters of the Arrow River itself. Both accounts are presented in the novel, illustrating the personal subjectivity of religious experiences, and the reader is left to judge between them.

“All that while he felt, though he could not put it into words, that his soul was out of gear with its surroundings—a cog-wheel unconnected with any machinery […] ‘I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim?’ His soul repeated it again and again. He did not want to cry—had never felt less like crying in his life—but of a sudden easy, stupid tears trickled down his nose, and with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the world without. Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant before slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields to be tilled, men and women to be talked to. They were all real and true—solidly planted upon the feet—perfectly comprehensible—clay of his clay, neither more nor less.”

Here, in recovery from his illness, Kim comes to his own moment of enlightenment in his quest to understand his identity. He does not find any clear answer to his question (“What is Kim?”), but he does gain a newfound sense of his interconnectedness with the world around him. Whatever he may be the answer to his individual identity, he perceives that he does belong in the world and is part of the substantive reality of everything he sees around him.

“Yea, my soul went free, and, wheeling like an eagle, saw indeed that there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other soul. As a drop draws to water, so my Soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all things. At that point, exalted in contemplation, I saw all Hind, from Ceylon in the sea to the Hills […]. I saw them at one time and in one place; for they were within the Soul. By this I knew that the Soul had passed beyond the illusion of Time and Space and of Things. By this I knew that I was free. […] Then a voice cried: ‘The River! Take heed to the River!’ and I looked down upon all the world, which was as I had seen it before—one in time, one in place—and I saw plainly the River of the Arrow at my feet.”

In this quote, the lama provides his account of his enlightenment and his discovery of the Arrow River. We see here several of the novel’s themes come together: the vastness and diversity of India are seen in their pure and unified state within the single reality of the Soul, as mediated through a religious vision. In this way, the very religiosity of India that lends such a kaleidoscopic view of the country in most of the book now provides a glimpse of India’s fundamental unity.