The Portrayal of Girl Child in Ruskin Bond’s The Blue Umbrella

Abstract

Ruskin Bond, Indian author of British decent, was born on 19 May 1935 at Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh. He was raised at Jamnagar (Gujarat), Shimla and Dehradun. He is a well-known Indian writer in English. He has written more than hundred short stories, six novels, three collection of verse and over thirty books for children. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children’s author and a top novelist. He received Sahitya Academy award for his book; Our Trees Still Grow at Dehra in 1992, and was honored with Padam Shree in 1999 for his lifetime contribution to Indian literature in English. He was awarded with Padam Bhusham in 2014. He has been writing for the last fifty years in different genre of literature. His stories and novels got wide publicity worldwide in India. Various directors produced films on his novels. He was also appreciated by various prizes and awards at national level. In 2005, the Bollywood director Vishal Bhardwaj made a film based on his popular novel for children, The Blue Umbrella. The movie won the National Award for best Children’s film. It is a fine specimen published in 1992. This novella has also been filmed in 2007. It is set in a small village of Garhwal, where a little highland girl, Binya lives. She trades her lucky leopard claw pendent with a picknicker lady for a pretty blue umbrella.