Gunga Din

The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier in India. Its eponymous character is an Indian water-carrier (a bhishti) who, after the narrator is wounded in battle, saves his life, only to be shot and killed. In the final three lines, the soldier regrets the abuse that he dealt to Din and admits that Din is the better man. The poem was published as part of a set of martial poems called the Barrack-Room Ballads. In contrast to Kipling's later poem "The White Man's Burden", "Gunga Din" is named after the Indian and portrays him as a heroic character who is not afraid to face danger on the battlefield as he tends to wounded men. The English soldiers who order Din around and beat him for not bringing water to them fast enough are presented as being callous and shallow and ultimately inferior to him. Although "Din" is frequently pronounced to rhyme with "pin", the rhymes within the poem make it clear that it should be pronounced , to rhyme with "green". T. S. Eliot included the poem in his 1941 collection ''A Choice of Kipling's Verse''. Actor Clifton Crawford was a famous performer of the poem; first doing so in the Broadway musical Three Twins (1908-1909) and later as a monologist. ==Adaptations and references in popular culture==

In the 1968 film "The Party", starring Peter Sellers as the main character Hrundi V Bakshi, there is a beginning segment that references Gunga Din. Hrundi (Sellers) portrays the "Son of Gunga Din". Grantland Rice's 1917 column describing Heinie Zimmerman's infamous World Series gaffe wherein Zimmerman futilely chased speedster Eddie Collins across home plate (rather than initiating a rundown by tossing the ball to a player covering home) ended with "I'm a faster man than you are, Heinie Zim." The poem inspired the 1939 adventure film Gunga Din from RKO Pictures, starring Sam Jaffe in the title role, along with Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Joan Fontaine. This movie was remade in 1961 as Sergeants 3, starring the Rat Pack with Sammy Davis Jr. as the Gunga Din character, in which the locale was moved from British-colonial India to the old West. Many elements of the 1939 film were also incorporated into Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The film Three Kings, set during the Gulf War of 1990–1991, also has many resemblances, including a "heist theme", to the film Gunga Din. Robert Sheckley's short story "Human Man's Burden" (1956, anthologized in Pilgrimage to Earth) alludes to the story by featuring a robotic servant named Gunga Sam, programmed to behave in a manner similar to the stereotypical colonial native servant. While stated to have no soul, he ultimately proves to be no less human and wise than his owner in actions. In 1958, Bobby Darin wrote and recorded the song "That's the Way Love Is" in which, referring to the unsolved riddle of love, he sings "And if ya come up with the answer, You're a better man, sir, than I ... Gunga Din". In 1964 Duane Hiatt and the group The 3Ds released an album of classic poetry set to music, including Gunga Din, with lyrics almost word for word from Kipling's poem. Songwriter Jim Croce set the words to music as "The Ballad of Gunga Din" and released it on his 1966 Facets album. In Carry On Up the Khyber (1968), part of the Carry On series of British comedy films, the rebel warrior chief is called Bungdit Din (Bernard Bresslaw), a parody of Gunga Din. In a scene where he boasts of wiping out the Khyber Pass garrison, the "Khazi of Kalabar" (Kenneth Williams) replies: "You're a better man than me, Bungdit Din." Gunga Din is the only fictional person, out of more than twenty individuals mentioned, in the 1970 Neil Diamond song "Done Too Soon". In the TV series M*A*S*H, the character Hawkeye Peirce (Alan Alda) directly quotes the poem in OR in one of the earlier seasons. In the season nine episode C*A*V*E he paraphrases the poem to comment Margaret (Loretta Switt) "You're a better nurse than I am Gunga Din" In 1996, the animated television series Animaniacs featured a segment called "Gunga Dot", in which the "Warner Sister" Dot has a job serving water to the patrons of a resort in a boiling hot desert near Bombay. After growing tired of the constant complaining, she releases the valve on the Warner Bros. Water Tower, which placates the guests and somehow creates the Indian Ocean. In The Sopranos Season 1 Episode 6 'Pax Soprana' Livia Soprano states the woman living next door is constantly running water and states "Water, water, water. It's like I'm living next to Gunga Din!" In 2015, The Libertines, an English rock band, composed the single "Gunga Din" for their comeback album Anthems for Doomed Youth. The verse "You are a better man than I am" is used throughout the lyrics. In the song by Australian Paul Kelly, "Forty miles to Saturday night", there is a line, "And a band down there called Gunga Din". In the 2015 British biographical drama film about Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, _The Man Who Knew Infinity_, one of Ramanujan’s Cambridge University professors refers to him as “Gunga Din. . . Gunga Din“ In Downton Abbey, episode 5, season 1, Mr Bates talks to Ms Anna and refers to "Gunga Din" in a conversation about Lady Mary. ==See also==