The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond (Summary)
The blue umbrella is a novel of children’s genre. It is about a young girl, Binyadevi, and her family. Binya lives with her family in a small village. She is a simple girl with realistic dreams. The story has multiple emotions including materialistic love, jealousy, and kindness.
Binya is a girl who belongs to a poor family, and they are just surviving. She does not have anything precious except one thing, a leopard claw necklace. It is precious because it is a good luck charm, at least this is what her mother thinks. One day, while doing chores Binya saw a beautiful blue umbrella. She fell in love with the umbrella but it belonged to an English woman. She started staring at the umbrella, the English lady saw her. The lady looked at her, and her leopard claw necklace. She wanted to have that leopard claw necklace the same as Binya wanted her blue umbrella.
When the lady asked, Binya offered her leopard claw necklace in exchange for the blue umbrella. When Binya got the umbrella she was very happy. All the people in the village admired her beautiful umbrella and were jealous of her. They always thought about how did Binya manage to get such an expensive umbrella when she was really poor. Binya did not care about others. She kept the umbrella and took it where ever she went. She was in love with that beautiful thing.
There was a shopkeeper named Ram Bharosa. Binya and her brother used to buy toffees from him. He saw Binya’s umbrella and wanted to own it. He offered Binya free toffees in exchange for the umbrella. But, Binya’s love for the umbrella was so strong that she refused to take the toffees. Ram Bharosa got angry and one day asked his servant who was a little boy, to get the umbrella. The boy planned to steal the umbrella and when he failed, he told Binya’s brother that Ram Bharosa gave him the task of stealing the umbrella. Everyone in the village came to know about what Ram Bharosa did to the little girl, Binya. The villagers felt awful for the girl and started buying things from another shop instead of Ram Bharosa’s shop. Isn’t it an irony that Ram Bharosa broke everyone’s Bharosa by asking the boy to steal the umbrella?
After some days, Binya’s blue umbrella faded, it had the marks of stitches but still, it was the most beautiful umbrella in the whole village. One day Ram Bharosa offered Binya a toffee again, this time it was not for greed or to get something in exchange. He was really feeling bad for what he had done and wanted to become a better person. The same day Binya realized that she did not need an umbrella to be happy or to look pretty. She had her family, villagers, and the beautiful nature to make her happy. She lost her love for the umbrella and gave it to Ram Bharosa when he gave her the toffee. Ram Bharosa had a smile on his face. He did become a less greedy person. People started forgetting about what had happened earlier when Binya forgave Ram Bharosa. They started buying things from him again. His shop started getting crowded again but this time there was something new, Ram Bharosa behaved unselfishly with his customers and always had a smile on his face.
We do not need an object to be happy. Good people around us and the beauty of nature is enough to make us happy. If we fall in love with an object one day or the other the love will fade away. The love between people never fades away.
