Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game

Chela: disciple or follower of a religious figure. From India, I forget which language. Made famous in the novel "Kim." In "The Quest for Kim", by Peter Hopkirk, the author might be thought of as Kipling's Chela. The book is devoted to exploring the writing of the novel Kim, by Rudyard Kipling. Few writers are better qualified to write,"The Quest for Kim", than Peter Hopkirk. A noted historian of border intrigue in Asia, he is a splendid source for a novel which is among many other things the most famous spy-story ever written. In Kim, the hero is a small street orphan familiar with the ways of the city. Among other things he is what is called a "cut-out" in spy jargon (a minor local asset - like a street rat in an Indian city, like the hero). He does his work mostly for Mahbub Ali, the swashbuckling Pathan border-spy and horse trader who comes down from the mountains every once in awhile bringing horses to sell, and information for the Imperial government. At the beginning Kim also makes friends with such figures as the Red Lama, an endearing old man from Tibet. He becomes, as the Lama says, his "Chela", and looks after him for the Lama is not a very streetwise character, and needs more than a little protection. At the same time he carries a message for Mahbub Ali, thus setting up as a theme for the rest of the story the tension between the two worlds, which is left completely unresolved in the end. No one knows which path Kim takes and perhaps that is the best ending. In The Quest for Kim, Peter Hopkirk goes through India and Pakistan, and ruffles through old records, exploring the real-life ideas that he believed to have been the inspiration for ideas in Kim. This is a fascinating exercise and well worth the reading. There really is a giant cannon rusting away in retirement at the city where the story begins. The "wonder-house" (as it is called) is of course the museum where Kipling's father was curator. And so on. Other things were harder to identify, especially characters - the author tends to believe that the characters were inspired by real people. Hopkirk's tale of his travels is well worth reading. It is both a giant book review, and a travel story and it succeeds on both counts.

Among Kiplingiana available for the 21th Century Kipling fan,. Hopkirk's "Quest for Kim" holds a well conquered place. Written in 1996 after many excellent books on British exploration, adventure and espionage in Asia, this small gem that stands between travelogue, literary commentary and pure act of loving memory toward one's own childhood dreams and expectations has become a classic. Rudyard Kipling's "formation" novel "Kim" is one of the most loved books of English literature (I personally read it over 10 times) and many of its readers have asked themselves if the plot and characters are true or imaginary. Well, Peter Hopkirk went further and actually explored the possibility that every single aspect of the novel was inspired by real people and happenings. After a brief introduction that updates on early and modern critical appraisal of RK's novel (colonialism? Racism? Orientalism?) we are introduced to the principal characters and a plot synopsis of the book. Kim would be half RK himself and half a mysterious Anglo-Tibetan "Doola" (from Doolan) a half-caste born from a British soldier that had eloped with a Sikkim girl and had gained some newspaper fame during the period RK was working in Lahore. Teshoo Lama really existed and had visited Kipling's father Lockwood, the Curator of the Lahore Museum, when Kipling was a child. Mahbub Ali as well was a real person, a horse dealer in the Sultan Sarai that used to visit Kipling when in Lahore. The Te-rain still runs today even if interrupted at the Pakistanian-Indian frontier, and the whole line has witnessed atrocious bloodshed during the Separation in 1947. The Colonel's Bungalow in Umballa is almost impossible to trace but some similar still stand in memory of colonial England. Colonel Creighton was definitely inspired by Colonel Thomas Montgomerie of the Survey of India a great spy master whose few selected pundits made the story of the Great Game. Huree Chunder Mookerjee Babu among these was probably a Bengali graduate from the University of Calcutta named Babu Sarot Chandra Das towards whom Kipling had an ambiguous feeling describing him as physically repulsive but extremely intelligent. The real Babu was one of the major experts on Tibet and wrote a Tibetan-English Dictionary. St. Xavier, Kim's school, was modelled on La Martiniere as recognized by many of those that had attended this prestigious institution. Lurgan Sahib, and here comes the surprise, was the mysterious A.M.Jacob, a jewel dealer, occultist and hypnotist of Madame Blavatsky stature and owner of the famous Victoria diamond later known as Jacob's diamond. Jacobs appears also in other Nineteenth Century novels such as "Mr. Isaacs" by F.Marion Crawford and in Newnham Davies' "Jadoo". Of the Russian and French spies Hopkirk surely identifies the Frenchman as a certain Bovalot that penetrated into India from the North and maybe the Russian as the famous Captain Gromchevsky who went out to meet Younghusband on the Himalaya. The

Peter Hopkirk has written an enthralling, easy to read account of his trip following Kim's travels from Lahore to Delhi, Simla and beyond. Hopkirk displays boundless energy and resourcefulness following leads in his determination to locate residences, shops and schools mentioned in the original book and the reader gets carried along in his efforts. I've purchased another copy of Kim to read again and I'm planning a visit to India to check out some of the locations myself! Nice map and pen and ink sketches.

If you've ever wished that you could actually visit Kipling's India, this book is for you. You will not be able to put it down...The author's detective work is intriguing and quite a feat. I loved this book!

Okay, I'm one of those people who, like author Peter Hopkirk, am totally enamored of the novel Kim. Hopkirk researches and traces the sources and inspirations for many of the characters and places in Kim. I confess that when I started to read Hopkirk's book, I was fearful lest it spoil Kim's magic. But I found the very opposite to be the case. The more I read Hopkirk's book, the more Kim grew in richness, depth, and life, and the more I felt awe for Kipling's masterpiece.