The Blue Umbrella


The Blue Umbrella is a 1980 Indian novel written by Ruskin Bond. It was adapted into 2005 Hindi film by the same name, directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, which later won the National Film Award for Best Children's Film. In 2012, the novel was adapted into a comic by Amar Chitra Katha publications, titled, The Blue Umbrella – Stories by Ruskin Bond, and included another story, Angry River. This story appeared in Bond's collection of short stories, Children's Omnibus.

Summary

In a small village called Garhwal, there lived a little girl, Binya. In the village, the shopkeeper, Ram Bharosa keeps an old useless shop and sells warm Coca-Cola bottles and sweets to the school going kids. A beautiful blue umbrella has been given to Binya by some foreigners on a picnic in the hills in exchange for her leopard claw pendant. The people in her village has become very fond of her umbrella. Soon the shopkeeper becomes jealous and tries to buy it from Binya by telling her that "this is a fancy umbrella which small girls should not have", but Binya refuses to give her umbrella and says that, "This is not for sale." As time passes, Ram Bharosa's feeling to get the umbrella turns in to an obsession. The school had been closed due to the arrival of the monsoon and Ram Bharosa employs a boy named Rajaram from the next village to work at the shop. When he comes to know about his master's desire to own the umbrella he makes an attempt to steal the umbrella, but Rajaram fails and gets caught, he then gives Ram Bharosa's name. Now everyone stopped coming to Ram Bharosa's shop. Ram Bharosa had got a bear necklace and he coated it with silver. However, Binya realizes her mistake that she shouldn't have shown off her umbrella as it was the cause for Ram Bharosas suffering. Finally, at the end, Binya gives the umbrella to Ram Bharosa, who gifts her a necklace with a bear's claw. Since then, Ram Bharosa started keeping the umbrella for anyone to borrow and people again began to visit his shop.