| Author: Ruskin Bond Book Review By: Atharv Gupta Grade: 5 |
‘The Blue Umbrella’ is a must read and a very heartwarming story by Sir Ruskin Bond. This story shows the life of an eleven year old girl named Binya, living in the village of Garhwal in Uttarakhand.
She fell in love with a blue colored umbrella which she got from some tourists with some different accents she never heard of in exchange of her leopard claw locket which is considered to be lucky. Everyone in the village liked the umbrella so much that they never stopped staring at it. It follows a sequence of several events in which a shopkeeper Ram Bharosa wanted the beautiful umbrella. She came everyday to his shop after school to buy a toffee or some other snacks one would prefer to eat after a tiring day at school.
Ram Bharosa desperately wanted the umbrella and even sent a tall boy who worked at his shop named Rajaram to steal the umbrella from Binya. Bijju, Binya’s elder brother got into a fight with Rajaram in which Bijju eventually emerged victorious. Later Rajaram explained them that he was sent by Ram Bharosa. When Ram Bharosa didn’t get the umbrella, he was devastated . The smile he had on his face was now gone, the smile which he had everyday. One day when Binya came to his shop, she left her umbrella there. Ram Bharosa saw this and was ready to keep it but if he takes the umbrella, everyone would think he stole it from Binya. He ran and quickly handed it to Binya. She felt pity on him so she told him to keep the umbrella because she didn’t wanted it now. She was happy to see the smile on the face of Ram Bharosa and his heartwarming smile appeared on his face again. That night it was raining a lot and a black bear climbed the roof of his shop. Since it was raining, the bear lost its balance and fell of the roof and ran into the woods. It had lost a claw. In the morning Ram Bharosa saw the claw and made a locket from it.
When Binya came to his shop, he gave the locket to her saying that a bear’s claw is more luckier than a leopard’s claw. Binya was happy and went home merrily singing with the wind.
I would rate this story five stars as this story is a good example of ‘a life lived for others is worth living.’ I liked the character Binya as in the last she gave her umbrella to Ram as she cared for someone’s beautiful and wholesome smile.
