MY NAME IS BOND! RUSKIN BOND! (1) BOOK 9#

 

Title – ‘The Blue Umbrella’

Publisher, Year, Place- Penguin, 1980, Delhi

Grade- 6^th and above

Pages - 23

Genre – Fiction, Young Adult

Theme – Happiness/ the act of giving

Author – Ruskin Bond

Brief Biography

Ruskin Bond is one of India's most renowned children's author. His writing career spans over six decades, he has written over 500 short stories and novels including the much-acclaimed 'Room on the Roof', and 'Vagrants in the Valley'. His stories 'The Blue Umbrella', 'A Flight of Pigeons' and 'Susanna's Seven Husbands' have also been adapted into successful Bollywood films. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993, the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.

Synopsis

The Blue Umbrella, is the story of a little girl called ‘Biniya’. One day at the hill side, Biniya finds a beautiful blue colored umbrella. But this umbrella is alike any other umbrella she has seen before.

What do you think would happen when the beautiful Blue umbrella catches the eyes of jealous villagers?

Reading - Writing Strategies

You can use this story as a starting point for introducing various elements of stories such as plot, character development, setting etc.

Here, I am focusing on the concept of 'Plots'.

Pre- reading

You can begin by asking the students about their own understanding of story plots, ask them to share some interesting story plots they know.

A plot, tells you about the ‘why’ of the things in a story. It draws reader into the physical journey of the protagonist. It describes the chain of events in a story.

Basic elements of a plot are-

• Exposition – basic information, needed to understand the story
• Complication - the catalyst that starts the conflict
• Climax- turning point of the story, where characters try to resolve the conflict.
• Resolution- the set of events which bring the story to a close

You can use the following ‘plot graph’ for a better understanding.

 

• You can also show the students examples of different types of plot lines. For e.g.-

1. Quest – the plot where a protagonist is searching for something.
2. Underdog- the plot where a protagonist overcomes big obstacles to be successful.
3. Rescue- the plot where a protagonist is searching for someone, usually involves a hero, victim and antagonist.
4. Love- this includes mills and boons types of stories.
5. Sacrifice- the plot where a protagonist has to make sacrifices for the sake of a higher purpose.

 

• You can ask the students to look at the title and predict the plot of the story

 

During reading

You can ask the students to write about the basic elements of the plot in the worksheet below as they go through the story-

Exposition
Complication
Climax
Resolution

 

• You can ask do you know where is Garhwal? Have you ever been to a village in the hills?
• Did you also see people doing farming on the hill steps?
• What all vegetables do they grow there?
• What type of trees were there?
• Has it ever happened that you wanted to buy something and it was not available in your city?
• Have you ever seen leeches?
• What happens during the rainy season in your city? Is it similar to where ‘Biniya’ is living?
• Do you agree with the villagers boycotting Rambharose?

 

 

 

Post reading

• You can ask the students if they agree with the ending.
• You can ask the students to think and write of a story plot of their own.

 Or

• You can introduce the idea of a plot device. A plot device is any technique in a narrative used to move the plot forward. For e.g. - in this story the narrative was around the blue umbrella.
• You can ask the students to pick an object and to think of story plot around that object.

 

 

Reflection

I grew up reading Ruskin Bond. The blue umbrella is one of the first short stories I ever read. It depicts the typical Ruskin style of writing, where you can see, hear, taste and smell the setting of the story. The mundane and everyday characters provide you with this connection that is often missing when you read other white children’s author.

Ruskin Bond has this special quality of taking his readers through a range of emotions in a subtle manner. He gives the reader a space to be in the shoes of the characters of the story. His effortless and elegant prose is just like a cherry on the cake.

 

Sources

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=bGF4bWFuc2VydmljZXMuY29tfGxheG1hbi1wdWJsaWMtc2Nob29sfGd4OmQzZTg2ODU5ZGMzNjMwNw