KIM III -- chapter 2.1: De-Plane! De-Plane! :: Te-Rain! Te-Rain!

Kim and the Lama

STOP READING HERE: "The last of the Great Ones," said the Sikh with authority, "was Sikander Julkarn (Alexander the Great). He paved the streets of Jullundur and built a great tank near Umballa. That pavement holds to this day; and the tank is there also. I never heard of thy God."

1. Evaluate the racism of India as it appears in the book.  Is there racism about Kipling himself, Kim, or simply the culture in general.  If not Kipling, since the narrative is essentially described through Kim's eyes, does Kipling, do you believe, possess any of that racism?
2. Cool pun: "I know the ways of the train" :: "I know the ways of the te-rain/terrain."
3. By continuation of the number 1, what happens on the train--at least the night trains--that can never happen elsewhere?  Judging by the so-public display between Husband and Wife, is there more "freedom" (for my lack of a better word) here than elsewhere?  Notice which individuals (as much as I can tell by my limited understanding of India back then (or now, for that matter)) don't care about caste and which do.
4. "Are we Rajahs to throw away good silver when the world is so charitable?"
5. Check Google Earth if you get a chance for the relative locations of Lahore (in Pakistan) to Umballah (Ambala, modern spelling) to Benares (or Banaras, official called Varanasi).
6. There is a crazy amount of folklore throughout the world built around rivers, and, more often than not, their healing effects, from La Llarona to Naaman and Styx to the Ganges (also called, as it is in Kim, the Gunga), not to mention the general Buddhist comparison (if I'm not mistaken, which is always a possibility, unfortunately) between the flow of life and the flow of a river.  Also, there's an obvious visual correlation between the path of an arrow as compared to that of a river.  Thoughts about this general confluence?
7. "He began in Urdu the tale of the Lord Buddha, but, borne by his own thoughts, slid into Tibetan and long-droned texts from a Chinese book of the Buddha's life. The gentle, tolerant folk looked on reverently. All India is full of holy men stammering gospels in strange tongues."  Tolerant, nonplussed, or numbly indifferent?

SATELLITE versus LITERARY INSPECTION

My eyes and technical expertise are inadequate to determine if Google Earth's resolution across the planet is impartial.  Not so long ago, my hometown of Dover, Ohio seemed to have a much lower level of detail than did, say, cities like Venice, Chicago, and Sydney; and it makes sense: it's like pharmaceutical research.  Why would a company invest money to interest a mere twelve thousand people when they could put the exact same money to use and satisfy twelve million.  Apparently time has done what beta money could not, and my former fellow citizens have finally received the leviathan's attention.  As far as I can tell, Venice and Dover have--at least almost--equal resolution (though I doubt anything like a 3D tour will ever be available for anything labeled "small-town Midwest").

Dover, Ohio

Regardless of the catholicity of Google's eye--and regardless of how fair it now and finally is--it is not perfect.  There is not a place on the entire planet where a viewer can zoom in so close as to inspect the wear and tear of a child's swing set or count fish--or rats, for that matter--in the Grand Canal.  This isn't to say it's not possible; it just isn't the case currently as commercially available by Google.  I do expect, however, that it's only a matter of time before comparable giant like Home Depot manages to gain sufficient access to satellite imaging to target customers for roof replacement and foundation repair.  But no matter how fine the possible detail available through Google Earth or whatever else, never (dangerous word) will it be perfect ("perfect" used here as "complete").  Never will it examine the souls (or even the soles (haha! -- sorry)) of those who traverse these or any other locale.  Look too closely--zoom in too much (and why does the software even permit such closeups if there's nothing to be gained by them?), and all you see are increasingly large (or decreasingly small) squares of color.  Look too closely for information and detail is lost and interpretation is no more than feeble guess work.

Venice, Italy

So it is with literature.  I am Google Earth.  The text is the planet and its places.  My problem is one of self-awareness and an ever loosening grip on reality: I often forget that when I look too closely all I see is a blur of pixels--that I've gotten too close, and that this close, there's just nothing left to see.

So goes the old saying, which I believe has been used here before, at least in comment: "Can't see the forest for the trees," and this is my biggest difficulty--or fault--in my attempts to interpret James Joyce and his Dubliners.

The picture is so often so much prettier from a distance.