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ISSN 2278-9529 Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal www.galaxyimrj.com www.the-criterion.comThe Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN: 0976-8165

Orient, Kim, and the Occident: Problematizing the Process of Acculturation in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim

Sreemoyee Banerjee Former Guest Lecturer, University of Kalyani

Kipling’s Kim is the documentation of the accounts of his young adult protagonist, Kim O’Hara, a British-Irish orphan, his hyphenated existence in the discourse of the Colonial India. The novel enriches in vivid details of the Indian people with their variant culture and religion. Kim is initiated into adulthood in an environment which is essentially multicultural and diverse. Kim lives a life of the bazaar and roads getting acquainted with a Muslim horse dealer, and some time later forming an unusual bond with a Tibetan lama. His journey in life is interspersed with simultaneous existence in and shift from one cultural discourse to another as he deals with each one of them and develops his unique identity as a cultural hybrid. The entire process of locating Kim in one particular cultural paradigm against various other existing one and the multi layered problems associated with such an attempt will be thoroughly analyzed in the dissertation. Kim’s embracement of his identity as a ‘Sahib’, his rejection of the same, his ‘othering’ himself at times through identification with the orient and his critical judgment of it will be the course of study in this dissertation. Kim’s characteristic behavior, his ability to master the vernacular, his intellectual liberty with English and the native languages complicates the process of acculturation and therefore presents different aspects of his hyphenated existence.

Kim’s involvement with culturally diverse people like the Tibetan lama (whose ‘chela’ he becomes in the course of the novel), the Pashtun horse trader Mahbub Ali ( by the virtue of whom he becomes involved in ‘the Great Game’), the British officials of the Maverick regiment, Lurgan sahib, the sycophant ‘Benglish’ Babu Hurree Chunder Mookherjee, the anglophiles of his school and nevertheless all the various culturally diverse people he meets throughout his journey leaves a mark on him and therefore making the process of acculturation a problematic especially in case of an young adult like him. The problem of locating oneself in and belonging to a particular culture problematizes Kim’s notion of life itself where his participation in the ‘Great Game’ between England and Russia becomes a metaphor for the struggle Kim faces through the process of acculturation. The entire novel will be thoroughly analyzed emphasizing on the problems of acculturation and what it finally resolute into.

Kim and the ‘Sahib’

“Take up the White Man’s burden- Have done with childish days- The lightly proffered laurel, The easy, ungrudged praise. Come now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years,Cold-edged with dear-brought wisdom,The judgment of your peers!”

(Kipling 261)

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Rudyard Kipling’sreaders are introduced to Kim when he is barely thirteen years of age and through the course of the novel he emerges into the thresholds of late adolescence. Though Kim pretends to travel “effortlessly” in “adult ways”, and prove himself proficient at activities that might be quite challenging to men much older than himself, he remains a boy, and “one whose rebirth at the end of the novel reminds us that he has not quite crossed the threshold of adolescence and arrived at adulthood.”(427). Therefore Kim remains a pre-adult, still a “colt” rather than a “fully grown pony” that Mahbub Ali, his Pasthun horse-dealer and Kim’s mentor, thinks he will grow into someday. This time period in which Kim undergoes a transition from childhood through adolescence to be initiated into adulthood is important as it also marks his initiation into diverse cultural discourses and paradigm. When on one hand he learns to impersonate the identity of a native, adding the extra “e” after his English sentences (like the Bengali BabuHurreeChunderMookherjee, giving an implication of an acquired English accent and speech), his inherent instincts of a “Sahib” reminds the Woman of Shamlegh (Lispeth of Kipling’s short story of the same name) of her “Sahib” who had deserted her after promising marriage. But at the same time she is not totally convinced that he is a “Sahib” but only a “wandering mendicant” because of his hybrid identity, and his effective impersonation of a native identity. Precisely such an impersonation would not have been executed so successfully by an out and out British such as Colonel Creighton as hisaccent and behavior would have betrayed him some way or the other. But Kim’s hybrid existence provides him an edge over only natives or the only British. Therefore the “almost” factor plays its cards perfectly in such situations. But it cannot be ruled out that after all Kim is a Sahib and theinstinct of his blood has its role to play. This shall be observed in the next sections.

Kim presents what can be called a new generation of colonial power, adept in the ways of native Indian life, far from outrageous claims of racial hatred. Through Kim Kipling presents a benevolent colonialist, one who is ready to bear the “White Man’s burden”, one who is not the malevolent master, exploiting natives and therefore being the target of their resentment and hatred. This kind of a figure can only be represented through the likes of Kim, who is a perfect synthesis of the British and Indian ways. Yet never for a moment can one forget that after all, Kim is a ‘Sahib’ as he inwardly contemplates on his British identity believing in dictums such as ‘Once a Sahib always a Sahib’. Patrick Williams in his essay ‘Kim and Orientalism’ writes:

“…running through the text, as a sort of counterpoint is the statement “Once a Sahib always a Sahib”…we are given a (restrained) amount of information about what it means to be a Sahib: Sahibs tell the truth; Sahibs cannot steal; Sahibs must act; Sahibs must obey; no Sahib would follow a Bengali’s advice; Sahibs are a strong-backed breed who never grow old; Sahibs are the right ones to oversee justice because they know the land”. (Williams 422).

Kim doesn’t tell the truth but he acts and obeys. He does listen and act according to Hurree Chunder Babu; the English educated Bengali Babu while being involved in The Great Game. He knows the land very well because it is his birth place (unlike most of his racial counterparts). Kim’s excellent knowledge of the native life gives him an upper hand in playing The Great Game and this knowledge, along with the other quintessential Sahib like qualities, help him in his mission. He indeed serves as Kipling’s perfect model of the new colonizer, one who can be both culturally and naturally British and Indian at the same time.

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In Chapter one of the novel we find Kim sitting “…in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher---the wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum.” (Kipling 3).Kipling says that there was “some justification” for Kim’s posture and defiance. He had “kicked” Lala Dinannath’s boy “off the trunnions----since the English held Punjab and Kim was English.” (3). The Zam- Zamah is nothing short of a profound symbol of power and Kim’s position “astride the gun” confirms his identity as a conqueror and as a colonizer and never for once does Kim forget (or is given an option to forget) that he is after all an Englishman. Despite being as dark skinned as any other native boy “Kim was white”. His preference of vernacular over his mother tongue and “…consorted on terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the bazaar” (3) Kipling asserts, time and again that Kim is British. When Mahbub Ali suggests that it would be improper for Teshoo Lama to visit Kim in his School in the company of other young Sahibs, Kim promptly replies: “Not all! ...Their eyes are blurred and their nails are blackened with low-caste blood, many of them. Sons of mehteranees---brothers-in-law to the bhungi [sweeper].” (122). Suvir Kaul points out that “Kim represents a very precise model of imperial belonging---one intimate with India but in no danger of being contaminated by its racial difference.” (Kaul 428). There is another thing that he learns duringhis school days at St. Xavier’s that “one must never forget that one is a Sahib, and that some day, when examinations are passed, one will command natives” (Kipling 107). The narrator asserts that Kim made a quick note of this as he knew where he would be lead to after the examinations were over, not to rule over the natives but to “command” over them, bearing the “ White Man’s burden” and executing his role as a Sahib proficiently. While travelling along the Grand Trunk road with the old Rani from Kulu and the Lama, Kim addresses her with a “flattering familiarity” and an “an idiom so local” that she asks him of his maternal upbringing and on learning that a local Indian woman has brought him up sheexclaims with much appreciation that his is a type fit to govern the country, sahibs who know the land properly, as their own and not some Englishman with a thorough English background, learning the vernacular from books who are nothing but “pestilence” in her eyes. Therefore Kim the Sahib is never exclusive of hisIndian-ness which sometimes makes his identity as a Sahib quite questionable.

Returning to the episode with the Woman of Shamlegh, Suvir Kaul observes that there is “enough of the Sahib in Kim the chela to let the Woman of Shamlegh intuit his origin…the British/Indian, colonial/native, man/child…”(Kaul 432). And despite this constant suspicion from the woman, as Kim is about to leave, he is confident enough to “perform for her as she knows a Sahib would”(432). He kisses her “chastely” on her cheeks, (a practice totally uncommon to native culture) a ritual characteristic of the European culture. But Kim is conscious enough to cover it up with his accented English: “Thank you veree much my dear” convinced that the extra “e” (which he borrows from HurreeBabu’s accent) would confirm his native origin. Kim’s consciousness of this difference of accent between anEuropean and an English educated testifies his inherent English attitude of differentiation. This sense of differentiation is important because no matter how much Kim might belong to the eastern paraphernalia his inherent European attitude of differentiation can never be extricated from him. Edward W. Said in his essay Kim as Imperialist Novel opines that Kim’s consciousness regarding his difference with the Indians around him, “Later develops explicitly into his awareness of being a Sahib, a white man, and whenever he wavers there is some to remind him” be it Mahmud Ali or the saintly Teshoo Lama “that he is indeed a sahib, with all the rights and privileges of that quite special rank.” (Said 345)

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Though Kipling has placed Kim outside Europe he has not taken Europe out of him and Indian-ness can never rule out the European instincts out of him.

Kim and The ‘Country Born and Bred Hero’

“My brother kneels (so saith Kabir) to stone and brass in heathen wise, but in my brother’s voice I hear My own unanswered agonies. His God is as his Fates assigns---- His prayers is all the World’s---and mine”

(Kabir 209)

John A. McClure distinguishes Kim from all other works of Kipling by entitling it to the accolade of “Kipling’s richest dream.” Kim depicts the “great and beautiful” India with a “Spirit of Celebration” which undoubtedly fascinates the readers. Unlike Kipling’s earlier short stories, says McClure, “where India is a grim realm of exile; in Kim, it’s the very heart of life.” (McClure 375). McClure in his essay Kipling’s Richest Dreams quotes Kinkead- Weekes who finds in Kim a welcome change of spirit: “the eye is caught by a whole Kaleidoscope of race, caste, custom, and creed, all seen with the warm affection that is almost unique in Kipling.” (375). Kim does not function as an “alien imperialist” who looks at the native Indian culture from a distance but is intricately included in it. Kim’s upbringing, similar to that of Kipling’s Mowgli(a “man cub” growing amidst wild animals in a jungle) in his The Jungle Book helps him to emerge from “…childhood as both the son and the father of a vast Indian family”. (377). Kim, like Mowgli or Adam (unlike many Anglo-Indian children), is not entrusted with the authority of a hostile English world but is rather initiated into a “ready-made” Indian Kingdom. Though Kim loses his parents at a very early stage of life, Kipling saves the fate of his young adult protagonist from an English foster home or the authority of a stern English relative (and the oppressions associated with it) to “catapult him into the very heart of his homeland, India.” (377). Kim enters his exotic eastern world to live as a “privileged member” since he is racially superior to the native Indians. But the Indian- ness which he continues to imbibe throughout his childhood and adolescence cannot be dissociated from him, as it has become an integral part of his existence. He lives like a native, speaks like one and even thinks in the vernacular. His skin is dark in color like any other native boy and he had been brought up by a low caste woman from the hills. Therefore Kim, from the very beginning, is a synthesis of a British and an Indian. Later in the novel when Kim becomes trained enough to work as an elite English secret service agent in The Great Game, he “…brings to it a set of skills and sympathies not heretofore available in a white man.” (377).

In a letter to his friend E.K. Robinson, dated 30th April 1886, Kipling writes that he is “…deeply interested in the queer ways and works of the people of the land [India]. I hunt and rummage among’em; knowing Lahore City---that wonderful, dirty, mysterious ant hill--- blind fold and wandering through it like Haroun Al-Raschid in search of strange things” (Kipling 271). His effort to know and understand the aspects of his “eastern enchantment” and his immense interest in the “queer” and “strange things” of the eastern exotica drives him to create a character to which all this knowledge is pre disposed so that he can function with the proficiency much required in a journalistic career which Kipling had chosen for himself. Also Kim’s role in The Great Game needs him to be thorough with Indian cultural and the

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vernacular language. His English accent needs to like that of the English educated BabuHurree Chunder Mookherje. Kim’s role in disguise as a “wandering medicant”, as a Chela toTeshoo Lama can only be executed successfully if he is intricately acquainted with the “queer” and “strange things” that India consists of.

The most important concept which emerges with Kim’s association with the Orient, as has been suggested by McClure in his aforementioned essay on Kim, is the notion of the ‘country-born hero’ a question left unresolved in Kipling’s short story, “The Sons of His Father”. The notion of the country-born hero undergoes a gradual metamorphosis from the earlier story to the novel Kim and what comes out is the idea of the “country-born and bred” hero who grows up in India entirely. “Kim has the ultimate in country breedings, but the youths he meets at St. Xavier’s School are also country bred” (McClure 377) and hence he approves of their ways: “Kim watched, listened and approved. This was not insipid, single- word talk of [English] drummer-boys. It dealt with a life he knew and in part understood. The atmosphere suited him” (Kipling 106-107). The account Kim hears reveals that the country- born are in possession of an intrepid familiarity with India. Kim wants the readers to approve of these boys of his school(the ones who have encountered daring episodes in the Indian terrain helping pilgrims or facing unfavorable circumstances amidst torrential rain characteristic of some parts of the Indian sub-continent) and recognizing their natural superiority to the English born and bred imperialists. Infact Kim’s “young tormentor” during his brief stay with the Irish regiment is a typical example of the aforesaid English imperialist who categorized all natives as “niggers”; yet, the narrator reveals that “the servants and sweepers called him abominable names to his face, and, mislead by their deferential attitude, he never understood” (Kipling 92). These “English imperialists” like that of the “drummer- boy” informs Kim that the English soldiers, to whom India is nothing but foreign, find themselves “only a prisoner” in this country because of their complete isolation from the native life of the land. But the country born-and-bred Kim never feels the same. To him India is his homeland, where he can travel at ease in third class train compartments with the Punjabis, the Jats, the Baniyas, the Hindus and the Muslims alike, without any form of prejudice and hesitation, feeling comfortable and at home.

Irvin Howe focuses on Kim’s “Indian-ness” in his essay, The Pleasures of Kim, and points out:

“When Kim is sent to the white man’s school, to be trained as the son of a Sahib that he is…He submits to the disadvantages of the whites, though he is still persuaded in his heart that he is one of the blacks, “When the madrisah [school] is shut, then I must be free and go among my people”. (Howe 333)

Kim, though an orphan, has foster fathers in Mahbub Ali and Teshoo Lama and his love and solidarity for them is far more prominent than his compassion for his other foster fathers like Colonel Creighton or Lurgan Sahib. It is Mahbub Ali who introduces him first(though unofficially) tothe ‘Great Game’ and it is not a British official but the very efficient Bengali Babu Hurree Chunder Mookherje who guides him through it. Edward Said,in his essay, Kim as an Imperialist Novel has brought to the forefront Kipling’s purpose of including the motif of the Game. He writes:

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“The ultimate analogy is between the Great Game and the novel itself. To be able to see all India from the vantage of controlled observation: this is

one great satisfaction. Another is to have at one’s fingertip a character who can sportingly cross lines and invade territories, a little ‘Friend of all

the World’, Kim O’Hara himself.” (Said 343) Kipling’s depiction of India in Kim is free of racial hatred and class conflicts. In Kim India is not a world driven by “hastening disasters”, (this kind of view was common in the depiction of the east by some of Kipling’s predecessors and contemporaries) nor is it a land inhabited cannibals and snake-charmers but rather what perfectly makes a “homeland” with whose culture and language Kim is more than well acquainted and can travel anywhere, anytime. Unlike the Europe born-and-bred Sahibs, Kim is free from the inhibitions of death by cholera or snake bites and displays absolute dexterity in his travels whether it be along the Grand Trunk Road or his journey along the hills. This is because he is a country-bred Sahib. It is interesting to notice that Kim has to undergo the process of “Sahibization” to prepare himself for the Great Game, Indian as he is not by birth or race but by customs and manners.

In his essayKipling’s Richest Dreams John A. McClure opines that the last chapters of the novel are filled with “gestures of inclusion” of Kim into the Indian paradigm and discourse and also affirming his position as a “privileged member” of the Great Indian family. His encounter and “symbolic union” with the Woman of Shamlegh is perhaps the most dramatic presentation of this inclusion. After the struggle with the spies from Russia, Kim and the Lama seek respite in the mountainous village of Shamlegh. They soon find that the head of this village is an Indian Woman, impressive and wise. She develops a quick fondness for Kim and tries first to charm and seduce him but when she realizes that her advances will not produce the result in what she wants and that Kim’s preoccupation lies in saving the ailing Lama, She provides Kim with her worthy assistance in doing so. The episode however reveals its full significance when the readers identify this woman as Lispeth, the heroine of one of Kipling’s early short story of the same name. The history of this woman, as she narrates it to Kim, reiterates the plot of the earlier short story as the readers come to know that long ago a Sahib(a pure “European Imperialist”) had shown some interest in her. She was once living with a European family, wearing European clothes an embracing an European lifestyle. She further points out that previously she used to be a “Ker-lis-ti-an” and spoke English like the Sahib’s do. Lispeth reveals that the Sahib had promised to come back and wed her. But he never returned. So she renounced her European lifestyle and Christianity to come back to her old, native and “heathen” ways. After fourteen years of exile Lispeth emerges from the pages of her short story, the one most critical towards Imperial rule, to meet Kim..

Kipling introduces Lispeth at this junction of the novel, as observes McClure, in order to impress upon the readers the superiority of the “country born rulers”. Lispeth pain, agony and disaster, as Kipling denotes in the earlier story stem out of the sheer ignorance and utter irresponsibility towards her on the part of the English Sahib. No matter how European Lispeth became her racial identity was all that mattered to her guardian’s wife and the Sahib whom she loved and out of the inherent antipathy towards natives Lispeth’s Sahib betrays her. McClure deducts that the Sahib’s “careless betray of a marriage pledge suggests the larger betrayal of the Indian people by their English rulers” (McClure 379).

McClure further suggests that when Kim meets Lispeth,his situation parallels that of the earlier European Sahib: he is “aided and wooed” by her in almost the same manner. But whereas the earlier European Sahib repays all that Lispeth had done for him by unkindness, false promises and betrayal, Kim treats the Woman of Shamlegh with much frankness and

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generosity. She desires Kim as her lover, “and he apparently refuses her, but he does reveal his true identity in an embrace and a kiss, for which she blesses him” (379) and when she offers money to him he makes it a point to restore it to her. The full significance of this interlude emerges in the “echoes” that her last question, addressed to Kim, generates in the novel: “you will come back again?” (Kipling 221). Her words,echoing the faithless betrayal of her first lover brings into the forefront the difference between him and the country bred protagonist of the novel. Lispeth’s first lover was a European, born and brought up there, and returning to his country was all that he wanted. But for Kim Indian is his country, his homeland and the Woman of Shamlegh a fellow citizen. Kim is deeply attached to India; all he wants is to explore its diverse geographical and cultural dimensions. Though not Indian by race, Kim becomes a part of it. Therefore he does not lure the Woman of Shamlegh with false promises, but, as McClure suggests, seals his commitment towards her and her fellow countrymen with a kiss and this symbolically includes himself and all his fellow country born and bred Englishmen within the culture they are to command over (380). Kim will never be a McIntosh Jellaludin of Kipling’s short story “ To Be Filled For Reference”, who dies “past redemption” by changing his creed and marrying a native Muslim woman to be a part of India because he doesn’t have to be a part of it; he already is. Kim lets the country (India, which he calls his Homeland) internalize him within its discourse and paradigm and therefore becomes one with it.

Thisinternalization, his identity as a ‘country-born-and-bred’ Sahib, comes into the state of a crisis when the “country” in identity clashes with that of the “Sahib” in it and this gives rise to a series of self-questioning and speculation, not only within Kim but also within the readers of Kipling’s novel. Problem begins when the two cultures meet through Kim and each seeks to establish its rights over him.

“Who Is Kim?: Negotiating Boundaries In Kim

So far Kim’s relationship with the Orient and the Occident has been analyzed and it has been observed that Kim forms a part of both the cultures. But the clash of two opposing cultures often evokes a conflict in him and he suffers from a crisis of identity. “Who is Kim?” “What is Kim?” he asks himself. These questions not only haunt Kim recurrently at different instances and situations of the novel but also indulge the readers in finding an answer to it. After all who is Kim O’Hara? A ‘Sahib’? A “Country-born-and-bred” Sahib? Or both? Or none?

“Rudyard Kipling’s Kim represents the search for a British protagonist Indian enough to cause the most visible divide of colonial power to---almost---disappear. But that “almost” is crucial, for at no time is his immersion into India must Kim forget that he is British.”(Kaul 427). Kipling’s Kim is Irish by birth and becomes English by virtue of his training and affiliation. Therefore as Kim grows into his “imperial responsibilities” in Kipling’s bildungsroman, his identity as an individual is defined by this “almost”: “British/almost Indian/Indian/but still British; child/almost man/man/but still child” (427). Therefore locating Kim in any particular cultural paradigm or discourse becomes problematic due to his hybridized existence in a world where “almost” repelling cultural identities try to find a synthesis in and through him. But then again the question of the “almost” becomes important in determining what Kim develops into as a socio-cultural being.

So far Kim’s relation with the Occident and Orient has been analyzed and it has been observed that Kim belongs to each of these cultural paradigms and discourses. But the main

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conflict lies in the fact that these cultures are mutually exclusive of each other and more importantly while the former belongs to the colonizer the latter is that of the colonized. As a result of this cultural conflict Kim develops a kind of identity crisis, feeling detached and restless, contemplating on issue of his belongingness exemplified by his internal monologues during different section of the novel and there are times when he confronts his foster father. Kim’s situation in the Great Game makes this issue profound. Infact the Great Game becomes a metaphor for Kim’s crisis. He is indeed involved in the greatest game of locating himself in a particular cultural paradigm and doing is is quiet impossible. Therefore his identity borders on the “almost” where the only possible conclusion to this problem lies, a hyphenated existence within the paradigm of a multicultural discourse where none but a cultural hybrid can exist.

Ann Parry, in her essay Kim and Contemporary History, observes:

“Every adventure of the Great Game in Kim turns on disguise: escape is effected or information gathered by the agent assuming a caste or religious disguise. Earlier in the novel, as a boy, Kim asked, “What am I? Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist?” and was told by Mahbub Ali, “Each has merits in its own country.” The boy’s objection that the Lama had taught him “an altogether different thing” is met by the usual dismissal of him as “a dreamer of dreamers”. (Parry 319)

The Great Game teaches Kim the significance of Mahbub Ali’s teachings, that what one is often depends on where one is placed “among Sahibs…among the folks of Hind” and at different moments “both kinds of faces maybe necessary. (Kipling 121). To operate as a spy in India, as Parry suggests, Kim has to be well acquainted with racial differences since this a Land of multiple cultures, castes and creed and undoubtedly Kim has a thorough knowledge of them. His “special virtue is being able to temper his soul so that he can enter another’s” (Parry 320) as in the particular episode when Hurree Babu thinks Kim was pulling is leg Lurgan Sahib answers promptly : “That is what he must learn at Lucknow” (Kipling 135).

The function of disguise is very important in this context. Kim’s position, culturally, is complicated (as it has been pointed in the very beginning and will be discussed further) since in him the Native and British cultures struggle to find a synthesis creating a new breed. Therefore the assessment of Kim’s acquaintance and relation with the two cultures individually becomes important to determine the point of fusion of the two.Therefore the function of disguise is very important in this context. Kim’s position, culturally,becomescomplicated (as it has been pointed in the very beginning) since in him the Native and British cultures struggles to find a synthesis creating a new breed. Therefore the assessment of Kim’s acquaintance and relation with the two cultures individually becomes important to determine the point of fusion of the two. Therefore the disguise theme gains importance as metaphorically and symbolically Kim’s disguise is an attempt on his part to negotiate with the two opposing cultures, the East and the West.

Another point becomes significant in this context. When Kim asks Mahbub Ali Whether he is a Muslim or a Buddhist it appears that the multiple cultures inside the Indian paradigm complicates things for him. Hurree Babu even advises him not to use terms generally used by Muslims while his role play as a Buddhist ‘chela’. But all these multicultural aspects are part of the broader paradigm of the Orient and the conflict lies between the Occidental and Oriental cultural discourse and paradigm.

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Kim’s conflict regarding his cultural identity surfaces in many ways, in various instances in the novel. The most prominent of these is an occasion, as has been suggested by Ian Baucom in his essay The Survey of India, when Kim, in chapter 10 of the novel, makes a break from St.Xavier’s (the place where his “Sahibization” takes place) and falls into the hands of Hurree Babu, the Western educated Asiatic Bengali Babu. Hurree Babu, rather than returning Kim to school, trains him for his destiny--- the Great Game. Hurree Babu trains him with “an array” of passwords, “undercover gimmicks” and disguises and set him free to ramble, closing his instructions with the following words: “This half year…is to make you de-Englishized, you see” (Kipling 155). Baucom focuses on the paragraph that immediately follows this pronouncement and observes that Kim “instead of reveling in this unexpected liberation, contemplates the implication of Hurree Babu’s words with something like horror: “Now I am alone---all alone, he thought. In all India is no-one so alone as I . . .I Kim.” (Baucom356). This profound sense of isolation gives rise to Kim’s ultimate dilemma and it is then that he asks himself a million dollar question: “Who is Kim?’. Kim’s feeling of “bewildered shock”, as Baucom says, is justified because “He has, once again, been abandoned--- not by another adoptive parent but by a narrative of belonging.”(357). This is significant in the context of Kim’s continuous displacement from one cultural paradigm and discourse to another. Kim, though initially disliked St.Xavier’s, had come to recognize “the benefits of his reinvention as a white and a sahib. To be ‘de-Englishized’ is, before all else, to be expelled from a history that he thought he had been invited to join.” (357). This evokes a sense of what Baucom perfectly describes as “cultural loneliness”. Baucom observes: “Even Kipling, regarding Kim in this critical moment cannot avoid identifying him assomething of a monster: a putatively white but performatively Asiatic hybrid . . .Kimtranslates this loneliness and freakishness back into the question which we[readers]---and he, and Kipling--- had thought was already answered in favour “Who is Kim?” he demandsof himself again, only to discover himself as a . . . unnameable excess. That excess,consonants with what Kipling will later call “monstrous hybridism of East and West”, notonly produces a profound sense of cultural bewilderment and estrangement produced by the colonial state. . . Kim meets himself in this late episode, he encounters aself . . .a multiple personality.” (Baucom 357).

Kim’s “multiple personality” gives him the identity of a cultural hybrid and the “monstrosity”( this hybridity is regarded monstrous because of the crisis it generates in Kim) it entails can be mitigated, to some extent, by following, the ‘middle path’. This religious analogy is relevant in the context of the protagonist as he learns about this from his spiritual guide, Teshoo Lama. The Lama in his long term acquaintance with Kim not only becomes the boy’s benefactor but also becomes his moral and spiritual guide along his journey through life. B.J. Moore-Gilbert, the fourth chapter of his book entitled Kipling And “Orientalism” suggests that the Lama is “…crucial to Kim’s quest for his own identity. His continuous emphasis on the middle way generates a practical sympathy with all degrees of humanity which Kim, too, comes to embody on their travels” (Moore-Gilbert 129). He further points out that “Kim’s act of obeisance in the dust outside the Jain temple is deeply significant in this context: ‘I was made wise by thee, Holy One…My teaching I owe thee’” (129).The Buddhist doctrine of the ‘middle path’ the Lamas ‘way of life’ if applied in the context of acculturation, can perhaps redeem Kim from the conflict and crisis his “multiple personality” impinges on him. The Lama not only enlightens him about the concept of the ‘middle path’ but also declares that ‘to those who follow the way there is neither black nor white”. If the philosophic doctrine is applied tothe discourse of culture, black and white may be used as symbols to represent the orient and the occident respectively. Hence, for Kim, to resolve his

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identity crisis, a direct result of the clash of conflicting cultures, he has to ignore the difference and embrace a synthesis. The conflict of cultural hybridism can only be resolved if only Kim does not look at the two cultures individually and separately, but identify his hybridism as a new cultural paradigm where he can suit himself.

Kipling’s motif in initiating a cultural conflict right at the peak of Kim’s adolescence is interesting and bears a considerable amount of significance. It can be said thatbefore Kim transcends into the threshold of adulthood, Kipling wanted his protagonist to experience and resolve the problem of acculturation to bestow him with an identity unique in its hybridity. As a reasonable inference one can deduce that Kipling wanted the two opposing culture to synthesize in and through Kim, not to endow arrays of conflict within him, but to acquire synthesis of the two dialectical cultures. The hybridity it ensues will not breed contradictory traits within him. It will be a reconciliatory hybridism, a positive kind of compromise. The Blakean philosophy of progress through synthesis of dialectical principles is applicable in this context to justify the motives behind such an assimilation of contraries into a single self to form a new breed. Zohreh T. Sullivan, in his essay on Kimwrites: “The major problems and contradiction in the novel are informed and shaped by Kipling’s divided sense of self, its multiple loyalties to the power of empire during a time of intensified authority, and his love for a “lost India that blurred distinctions between the ruler and the ruled. The “ inner quest, the search for an identity (“who is Kim?”), suggests the possibility of self-discovery and integration of his many selves, the arrival at an identity meditated by the lama Kim learns to love.” (Sullivan 442)

This is evident from the transition of Kim’s own concept about his cultural identity towards the end of the novel. Kim, whom the reader finds a few chapters ago, reprimanding Hurree Babu for “wordily obfuscate[ing] around the affair” (Parry 319) (of the new situation of the Great Game) by strongly asserting his superior racial position,“I am a Sahib” (Kipling 185) forgets his cultural and racial superiority and wholeheartedly indulges in comforting the ailing Lama by rubbing his feet. When the Lama expresses his surprise at Kim’s devotion towards him despite being a Sahib he promptly answers “…I am not a Sahib, I am thy chela” (Kipling 25). This can be studied as an example of Kim’s embracement of the middle path to emerge as a perfect synthesis of the two diametrically opposite cultures. This hybridity is without threats of monstrosity and self-doubt as it is a peaceful reconcilement of the Eastern and the Western culture. This does not signify that Kim forsakes the worldly life to embrace the life of the Lama but rather suggests that Kim has found deliverance from the conflict of culture through embracing his hybridity. In this way the hyphen is removed and the two cultures becomes one in and through Kim. The Lama successfully wins “…salvation for himself and his beloved [Kim]” (Kipling 240).

Conclusion

Kim had never existed, wholly, either as a Sahib or as a Country born and bred Englishman. His identity is rather a result of a synthesis of the two opposite cultures. This synthesis is a result of Kim’s internalization of both the cultures and despite their conflicting claims, a sort of resolution is found in and through Kim. Kim’s appeal lies in his ability to forgo cultural differences and embrace a mixed identity. He is not devoid of stereo typifying native Indians. But at the same time his sympathy lies with them. Kipling wanted to create the figure of a benevolent colonizer, who, does not indulge in exploiting the native Indians,

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one who does not reflect an acquired sense of superiority in his disposal towards the native Indians and one who does not relegate the natives into an object position. In a letter addressed to Margaret Burne-Jones dated 28th November 1885, Kipling, writing about the European men employed in India mentions that England spends her best men in India who in his opinion, die like Martyrs, by virtues of overworking and succumbing to diseases only to make India, a foreign country, “better” than what it is. Kipling’s outlook can be analyzed and scrutinized through the glasses of Post-Colonial criticism but what matters here is Kipling’s concern for the men of Europe who face innumerable adverse situations, be it uncongenial weather or health conditions because, they are not, country born and bred. What makes Kim victorious in the face of extreme heat and venereal diseases (to which many of Kipling’s European characters have succumbed) is his capability of getting adapted to the country’s weather and its people. This adaptation would not have helped Kim in his life and in his successful operation as a spy alone. Kim emerges victorious in his mission and comes to an understanding of himself and his identity through a long drawn process of internalization of both the Eastern and the Western culture and thereby arriving at a point of synthesis. It is true that the Eastern and western culture had created a sense of ambivalence within Kim but it is equally important to take into consideration that had it not been for the crisis created through the cultural conflict and its ambivalence, Kim could have never been able to arrive at a position of synthesis where he comes to a significant understanding of his identity and of himself. He perhaps finds a reasonable answer to this Question of identity. The hybridism lets go off its “monstrosity” and helps Kim to resolve the doubts about his identity and self.

Works Cited:

Aries, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood. Trans. Robert Baldick. New York: Random House. 1962. Print. Baucom, Ian. “The Survey of India” in Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print. Howe, Irving. “The Pleasures of Kim” in Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print Kaul, Suvir. “Kim, or How to Be Young, Male, and British in Kipling’s India” in Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print. Kipling, Rudyard. Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print. McClure, John A. “Kipling’s Richest Dream” in Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print. Millar, J.H. “A ‘New Kipling’ ” in Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print. Moore-Gilbert B.J. Kipling and “Orientalism”. London: Crom Helm Ltd., 1986.Print. Parry, Ann. “Recovering the Connection Between Kim and Contemporary History” in Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print. Said, Edward W. “Kim as Imperialist Novel” in Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print. Sale, Roger. Fairy Tales and After: from Snow White to E.B.White. New York: Harvard University Press, 1978. Print.

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Sullivan, Zohren T. “What Happens at the End of Kim?” in Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print. Williams, Patrick. “Kim and Orientalism” in Kim: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. , 2002. Print.

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