|
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gunga Din |
"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!"1 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 Kipling 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". The poem was published as one of the set of martial poems called the Barrack-Room Ballads.
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.
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.
The name "Gunga Din" is sometimes used in the musical instrument world; brass instruments, particularly bugles, of low or questionable quality produced in India are often called "Gunga Din" horns, as well as "junkers", or more appropriately, "wall-hangers".citation needed
"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 poem is parodied in "Gunga Dot", an episode of Animaniacs.
The 2006 movie The Contract makes frequent reference to Gunga Din.
Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen featured a restaurant in New York City called the "Gunga Diner".
The version of Bob Dylan's folk song "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" (originally from The Basement Tapes) that appears on The Essential Bob Dylan compilation opens with, "Clouds so swift an' rain fallin' in, Gonna see a movie called 'Gunga Din.'"
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |