The Blue
Umbrella by Ruskin Bond is a popular children’s story. It features Binya as the
main character, though there are other important characters as well, but the
story revolves around Binya and her little beautiful umbrella. The story is
widely popular among children, thus it has also been included in the schools’
syllabus all across the country. Since it is often taught in the school, thus
the character sketch of Binya is often demanded by students from year to year.
Character
Sketch of Binya from The Blue Umbrella
by Ruskin Bond
Binya is the
main character of the novel ‘The Blue Umbrella’ by Ruskin Bond. Her full name
is Binyadevi. As in the hills or anywhere in India it is a kind of trend to
call children with their short nicknames. Binya’s elder brother’s name is
Bijju, whereas his real name is Vijay.
Binya aged
eleven is a hilly girl. She lives with her small family in the hills of
Garhwal. Her father died when she was two years of age. For sustenance, they
have three tiny terraced fields, on which they grow potatoes, onions, ginger,
beans, mustard and maize. They don’t sell the vegetables in the market but keep
it for themselves. They also have two cows and the extra milk they sell to
others. Self-sustenance is their primary objective of life, not money making.
Binya’s brother Bijju goes to school. Sadly, she doesn’t go to any school;
instead she looks after the two cows: Neelu and Gori.
Binya loves
wandering over the mountains and in the distant valleys. She isn’t afraid of
darkness, forests, and climbing the trees. She loves freedom as well, thus
whenever cows go out with her, she never yells at them nor restrain them going
here and there. In fact, she seems lost in herself.
One day when
she comes across some picnickers from the city, she realizes that city people
have different kind of lifestyle and happiness. They are wealthy and possess
good items, like blue umbrella. It is sad to note that city people regarded her
as a poor girl because she was wearing torn clothes. She looks at them from a
distance – it means she doesn’t like being with people. Often hilly people
don’t prefer mingling in the crowd. Also, she feels nervous when she is at
bazaar. Binya isn’t greedy: that we can say when city people tried to buy her
tiger-claw pendant for five rupees. Instead she chose to have that blue
umbrella for that tiger-claw pendant.
Another aspect
of Binya is that she is a kind-hearted person. She allows the children of the
village to hold her umbrella for a short while. At one instance when Bijju
offers her berries, she lets him hold the blue umbrella. One windy evening when
her umbrella gets carried away by the wind into a ravine, she carefully with a
good presence of mind follows it and gets it out from the cherry tree.
Evidently, she wasn’t afraid of anything.
Her
relationship with Ram Bharosa, the tea-shop owner, goes sour when he tries to
contain her blue umbrella by an unfair way. After that incident Ram Bharosa’s
shop business declines and Binya feels responsible for his loss. She reproaches
herself for flaunting the umbrella over-the-limit and it caused greed in Ram
Bharosa. Hence, she gifts the blue umbrella to him, so that people can again
start coming to his shop.
Coming to her
looks, Binya is fair, stout, and sturdy with black hair and eyes. She sports a
tiny ponytail. Though Binya is an ordinary girl, like most of the children her
age, but her virtues like compassion and kind-heartedness and boldness makes
her stand out from the crowd.
Read the full summary of the
novel The Blue Umbrella here: https://goo.gl/Xq6LAf
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