Gunga Din
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"Gunga Din" (1892) is one of Rudyard Kipling's most famous poems, perhaps best known for its often-quoted last stanza, "Tho' I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer (a "bhisti") who saves the soldier's life but dies himself. Like several others among Kipling's poems, it celebrates the virtues of a non-European while revealing the racism[?] of a colonial infantryman who views such people as being of a "lower order". But the last line in particular suggests a deep-down unease of conscience about these racial feelings, both in the depicted soldier and in Kipling himself. The poem was published as one of the set of martial poems called the Barrack-Room Ballads.
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[edit] Adaptations
The poem inspired a 1939 adventure film of the same name from RKO Radio Pictures starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Fontaine, and Sam Jaffe in the title role.
The movie was remade in 1961 as Sergeants 3, starring the Rat Pack. The locale was moved from British-colonial India to the old West. The Gunga Din character was played in this film by Sammy Davis, Jr.. Many elements of the 1939 film were also incorporated into Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.[1]
A much shorter animated version of the poem and film was made as an episode of The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, with the ultra-myopic character in the title role. He was voiced, as always, by Jim Backus.
[edit] In popular culture
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In Season 1, Episode 6 of The Sopranos, Livia Soprano (the main character Anthony's mother), compares her neighbor to "Gunga Din" since she is constantly running the water.
The team trophy of the Comrades Marathon between Durban to Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Gunga Din trophy and was first awarded in 1931 to Maritzburg United Athletics 'A' Team.
"The Ballad of Gunga Din" was recorded by Jim Croce in 1966. The song appears on the albums Facets (1966) and The Faces I've Been (1975). "Gunga Din" is also the title of a 1969 song by The Byrds written by Gene Parsons.
The band UFO on their album Flying (1971) taped backwards the last lines of the poem at the end of the title track.
In Watchmen, written by Alan Moore, several of the characters frequent a restaurant called the Gunga Diner.
Bob Dylan quotes "Gunga Din" in his song, "You Ain't Going Nowhere."
In a second season episode of Soap, Chester wakes from a coma. After being asked who he is and given a mirror, he exclaims, "I'm Gunga Din!"
Aesop Rock references Gunga Din in the song "Dirt", a collaboration with musical artist Tobacco.
In "Dear Dad....Three", an episode of the television series M*A*S*H, Hawkeye recites part of the poem.
New Found Glory mention Gunga Din in the hidden track at the end of the "The Goodbye Song" on their 1999 album "Nothing Gold Can Stay."
The Venture Brothers referenced Gunga Din in a season one episode.
[edit] Other usage of the phrase
In the United Kingdom, the term Gunga Din has been used as a derogatory phrase for a person of Indian or Bangladeshi origin.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Jaap van Ginnekan, Screening Difference: How Hollywood's Blockbuster Films Imagine Race, Ethnicity, and Culture, 143, ISBN 0742555844, 9780742555846143 "Spielberg conceded that Gunga Din was one of the major sources of inspiration for the second Indiana Jones movie, and it does indeed contain many of the same elements."
- George Robinson: Gunga Din (article on the 1939 Hollywood film). Soldiers of the Queen (journal of the Victorian Military Society). September 1994.
[edit] External links
Text of the poem from Bartleby.com[1]
