Who is gangadin

When the sweatin' troop-train lay In a sidin' through the day, Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl, We shouted "Harry By! You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been? You put some juldee in it, Or I'll marrow you this minute, If you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!

If we charged or broke or cut, You could bet your bloomin' nut, 'E'd be waitin' fifty paces right flank rear. With 'is mussick on 'is back, 'E would skip with our attack, An' watch us till the bugles made "Retire. When the cartridges ran out, You could 'ear the front-files shout: "Hi! I sha'n't forgit the night When I dropped be'ind the fight With a bullet where my belt-plate should 'a' been. I was chokin' mad with thirst, An' the man that spied me first Was our good old grinnin', gruntin' Gunga Din.

So I'll meet 'im later on In the place where 'e is gone— Where it's always double drill and no canteen; 'E'll be squattin' on the coals Givin' drink to pore damned souls, An' I'll get a swig in Hell from Gunga Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! National Poetry Month. Materials for Teachers Teach This Poem. Poems for Kids. Poetry for Teens. Darn good movie. It will always be a compliment because it is referring to Din, an Indian Bhishti of unexpected character and bravery.

So, the next time someone refers to you using this phrase, thank them for the compliment and their insight. Fucking colonizers man. The movie was based on the poem and others by Kipling. The British have always had a great capacity for wonderfully told stories.

That is also part of being a leader; telling stories that entertain and contain important lessons of life. Saw the movie when I was a kid with my whole family. Wow, those were the days. Reading this article today brings back those fond memories. Same with me. The movie was one my brother and I acted out for days after seeing it. It can appear as:. Click here for other possible spellings of this surname. The surname Gangadin is the , th most frequently held last name on a global scale.

It is borne by approximately 1 in 6,, people. The surname Gangadin occurs predominantly in The Americas, where 57 percent of Gangadin reside; 47 percent reside in South America and 47 percent reside in Gallo-Germanic South America. Gangadin is also the 56, th most frequent first name on earth It is held by 11, people.

This surname is most common in Suriname, where it is carried by people, or 1 in 1, Excluding Suriname Gangadin is found in 12 countries. It is also common in India, where 14 percent are found and South Africa, where 14 percent are found.

A highly racialized reference isn't necessarily "innocent" even if you think the original work is. There's a long history of people turning even "positive" portrayals into terms of abuse. Bigots and bullies aren't always particularly educated or choosy: even a muddled reference that still communicates "you are a member of a subaltern group" can serve their purposes just fine.

Getting your meaning across relies on both knowledge and a rather particular assumption of good faith from your audience. It's not a phrase that communicates much.

I, along with much of my family, use this phrase regularly as a compliment for someone who possesses the fortitude to do something that I doubt I could do.

For us, there is never anything insulting either implied or inferred. Kipling was born and spent his first five years in India, and then lived there again after school from age 16 to For him, the poem was historical. Indians of the lower classes were - much the same as African slaves in America - considered to be something less than human, and were treated as such.

Was such treatment racist? Yes and no. The English treated the lower class Indians like dirt, but then again, so did the upper class Indians. It was expected in that culture. It was not because of his race, but rather his class. The narrator of the poem had every right - even the responsibility - to treat Gunga Din the way he did.

To treat him any better would have been considered an insult to the higher classes. Yet at the end of the poem, the speaker acknowledged that Gunga Din was not only in fact a man not merely lower-class "property" , but that he was even a better man than the speaker himself, for Gunga Din possessed courage and character that the speaker did not. I suppose that one could take such a compliment as a sort of insult, but I have never seen it that way.

Basically, it is saying "Society may see you as inferior, and I have treated you terribly, but you are truly the better man. This poem is an explicit reference to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus :. Givin' drink to poor damned souls , An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! Yes, Din! You Lazarushian -leather Gunga Din!

The narrator of the poem puts himself in the place of the rich man in hell who begs for a drop of water from Lazarus who is heaven , the "bosom of Abraham".

In this poem the hyperbole is actually heightened by adding that Gunga Din even comes down to Hell to give a drink to the damned souls suggesting perhaps not even intentionally that the poet's present state alluded to here is also a kind of hell?

So this is pretty well making him out to be as "better as it gets" while sadly never quite removing a little demeaning servitude as Din's "natural" lot. Within the severe limitations of the British post-colonial mentality, it's a perfectly generous compliment, albeit with a heavy serving of irony. I think I am a latecomer on this one I have a personal example He said to me in the most sincere way, You are a better man than I, Gunga Din. He was referring to the long years, and the long months leading up to her death of being at her side which he felt he cannot and could not do for anyone.

He didn't have what it takes, and he thought I did. Sometimes we analyze too much, resulting in confusion from clarity. I first heard, then read, and later viewed the quotation as a youngster I am now 75 , and to this day I regard it as one of the most introspective and enlightening of all. And with quite positive results as to formative attitudes concerning race.

I am a white man, and if a black person were to say that to or about me, would I consider it anything other than a literate person saying a kind thing? I would not. The reason that's no longer considered a compliment is far more likely that the audience is too young, because the modern curriculum has no time for Kipling. I hope that's all there is to it.

That is to say, the problem is not what the phrase means or ever meant, but that today's audience simply won't recognise it. Though the expression of it was and remains racist to an extent shocking to many of us today, it's also of its era and so was and remains complimentary.

I've heard the phrase all my life born and my wife a year older has, too. My mother born used it frequently a public or parochial school education was a better quality than what you see today.

And, no, Kipling wasn't a racist, any more than Frederic Remington. Kipling was forever paying compliments to Her Majesty's enemies, as in Fuzzy Wuzzy. A lot of the epithets against Kipling are the same old Lefty trash thrown at anyone who stands for values. I'll take Kipling over the Antifa, limousine, or any other kind of Liberal any day.

History and culture is liquid. At it's height, the English Empire was admired by much of the world and their actions were considered upright and justified.

Today people look at English colonial beliefs and label them racist and bigoted. At one time Romans looked at the population of Britain and considered them backward. I suppose the Romans were racist and bigoted. Before that and even at the height of Roman power your average Greek considered himself superior to the Roman. I guess Classical Greeks were racist and bigoted. Xerxes looked upon the Greeks and thought them rural and mundane. So the Persians were racist and bigoted. The Egyptians tended to consider the Persians as fairly gauche What is and what was are different matters.

It depends upon where you stand. Is a fire hot? Your opinion would rather depend on whether you were sitting by a fire or standing in one. I'm sure there will come a time in the future when whatever culture exists will look back on the current "politically correct" movement and murmur "What foolish bigots and self righteous knotheads these people were. The continued attempt to apply current mores and attitudes about race and morality to times long past is absurd.

Every piece of literature is a snapshot of that era. If one is not well read enough to understand the context, any comment is ill informed. I was introduced to Kipling while serving in the military. The poem "The Young British Soldier", opens up a discussion about who benefited from Empire , and who did not. Many a young, poor British lad died on the Afghan plain for the Empire. The British Empire's class system was not so different than the Indian caste system.

Those at the top benefited and those at the bottom served. Each system of empire, Greek, Roman, British, Spanish, Japanese, has viewed its subject along these lines.