The “Blue Umbrella” novel is written by famous Anglo-Indian author Ruskin Bond and it was originally published on 1980. The story of novel was taken into Hindi film in 2005 which was directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and it thereafter won National film award for best children film of the year.
THE BLUE UMBRELLA BY RUSKING BOND
Summary of The Blue Umbrella By Ruskin Bond
The story of novel revolve around a village girl named Binya, who belongs to the mountains of Garhwal village in Himachal Pradesh. The full name of Binya is Binya Devi and she has one brother named Bijju, also known as Vijay who is 2 years older than her. She has no fear of dense jungle and isolated hilltop as she is used to it. She feels nervousness only when she was in market town surrounded by people in bazaar.
Binya has two cows named Neelu and Gori, Neelu is a name of grey cow and white cow is called Gori. She daily takes them in forest to feed and it is Binya’s responsibility to take care of Neelu and Gori and to feed them. Sometimes cows comes themselves from forest and sometimes they don’t and if they don’t it is Binya’s responsibility to fetch them from dense forest. One day when Binya was with her cows in forest she heard voices and laughter of people, when she goes to see them, she came across a party of picnickers.
Binya was hiding beside trees admiring their clothes and she was watching the picnickers who are speaking in different accent which is unknown to her and then she starts gazing at their yummy foods. And now her gaze come to the bright blue umbrella which is very small but attractive and beautiful. She moved forward to see the beautiful blue umbrella and as she came near an umbrella, one woman from picnickers saw her. A woman notice a pendant around Binya’s neck which is made up of tiger’s claw and ask her to give pendant in return for two rupees. Binya put her hand on necklace and denied her request, the woman then showed her five rupees note but again she denied her request.
Binya without hesitancy point at woman’s blue umbrella in return for her necklace and woman exclaimed “My umbrella” you want my umbrella. A women picked her umbrella and gave it to Binya and says this umbrella is yours now. Binya removed her necklace and held it to the woman’s hand in return for umbrella. She takes the umbrella happily and then vanished into dense jungle. When she returns home with umbrella in hand everyone in her family start gazing at her beautiful umbrella because no one had seen such a beautiful umbrella in whole village.
The Blue Umbrella Summary : II
The novel now introduce new character named Ram Bharosa, who runs a tea shop at Tehri road. When Binya visits his shop with her umbrella, he was surprised by seeing her umbrella and ask her to give him umbrella in return for 10 rupees. Binya denied his request without hesitation. Almost everyone in village of Binya are jealous of her blue umbrella as no one had seen such beautiful umbrella before.
The story now jumps to Ram Bharosa who hires a boy name Raja Ram in his shop and when Binya again visits his shop to drink tea, he starts gazing at her umbrella, Raja Ram ask why are you gazing at her umbrella and he told him that he likes her umbrella. Raja Ram says I can robbed this umbrella from her for you, if you give me three rupees in return. Firstly, Ram Bharosa hesitate on Raja Ram’s offer but after sometimes he agrees and send him to robb her umbrella for him. When he was robbing her blue umbrella, Binya and her brother named Bijju caught him and ask why are robbing my umbrella in which Raja Ram replied that his employer Ram Bharosa forced him to rob your umbrella for him.
When everyone in village learns that how Ram Bharosa has tried to robbed a little girl umbrella, they stopped going at his shop. Binya feels bad for Ram Bharosa and she decide to go at his shop to drink tea. When she visits his shop, Ram Bharosa thought she has come to criticize him but later on he learns that Binya has come to forgive him. After drinking tea, she left her umbrella in his shop and when Ram saw her umbrella he follows her to give it back to her, on which Binya says that I don’t need this umbrella anymore you can take it with my blessings.
Ram Bharosa put umbrella in front of his shop so that everyone can touch and feel the beauty of umbrella. One day in winter a wild bear comes in village who tried to robbed a pumpkin growing on the roof of Ram’s tea shop. The next morning Ram Bharosa found the claw of bear in front of his shop and he pick it up and put it in his pocket. He used bear claw to make a beautiful chain for Binya and afterwards when she visits his shop, he gave it to her with his blessings. Ram says this is the best moment of his life because of his gift, Binya is very happy.
Recommended Reading