Jottings from the Editors Desk
The past year, which was our inaugural year, is
one we can look back on with a certain degree of
satisfaction.
We held 4 meetings, including a luncheon, all well
attended. Our membership has risen to 60. Our
newsletter is circulated not only in Australia (we
have members in the Northern Territory, ACT. Qld
and Victoria) but also in North America and the UK,
and has been well received.
Our website www.kiplingsocietyaustralia.com has
attracted replies from several parts of the world
besides here. So we have achieved many things we
set out to do.
Our speakers were excellent, in fact we shall have to
work hard to do better this year.
I should like to give special thanks to Susannah for
her help in arranging speakers, Ian for taking on the
Treasruer's job and membership records, Kristen for
her door keeping, and all those ladies who helped
out in the kitchen.
After an excellent start there is always a temptation
to sit back and let things roll, please don’t, we need
more help, we have a vacant secretary’s position, we
would like someone to organise outings, say to see
My Boy Jack, or lunches/dinners etc.
The coming year we have some very good
meetings planned, Rodney Pine has had to pull out
of his talk on Kim, so we have to fill that vacancy, our
next meeting is a joint one with JASA with Professor
Ricketts. Please note that Prof Ricketts will have
some of his books available for any members to
purchase, and at the end of the year we have a
musical meeting with Dr Halliwell.
The past year has seen a plethora of books about
RK. One of the more recent publications is Rudyard
Kipling. The Books I Leave Behind by David Alan
Richards.
The book shows the many achievements of RK, his
works produced during his lifetime and after his
death.
Profusely illustrated with 80 full colour illustrations
and authored by one of the UK societies vice
presidents and our man in North America!
Several members have taken advantage of a recent
volume of all RK’s verse, which is being sold by our
local bookshops at a very reasonable price.
Poetry is to the fore at the moment after our
successful afternoon, where many members read
their favourites, and many commented on our
choice of verse for the newsletter.
The one I have put in this time is unusual, it shows
his wide grasp of Indian customs, indeed the way
they regarded life and death, his knowledge of
Indian State court procedure, weapons and dress,
and also the strength of character of many of the
females at that time.
RK has always liked to stress stronger females, from
his poem the Female of the Species being more
deadly than the male” and some of his heroines,
William, who liked men who did things, Mrs
Hauksbee, Badalia Herodsfoot, even Minnie Threegan who took Captain Gadsby from her
mother!
The crossword has at last been completed, with
much help from Kristen, answers will be published
in the next newsletter.
One of the more unusual items at the last meeting
was a recording Susannah produced of Kipling
actually speaking, recorded in 1933.
It was the first time many of us had heard RK's voice.
We heard several readings of RK's verse by well
known actors, besides the live verse of our
members.
Talking of live shows, our Treasurer Ian Claridge is at
the moment producing a performance, in fact a
series of shows, of Billy Liar at Hunters Hill.
- D.W.
Kipling Memorial
 Hello David,
I am a descendant of English artist John Charles
Dollman (1851-1934) who is particularly noted for his
'Mowgli made leader of the Bandar-log'. I am
researching Dollman as part of a PHD focusing in 19C
British art and in a recent net search noticed a
message posted on the UK site (fairly old - June 1998)
which wondered if Kipling and Dollman were
acquainted. Both Dollman and his daughter Ruth
exhibited at the RA , RI, etc., and often painted together
at a country studio retreat in Ditchling on the South
Downs, Sussex and my brother and I have a number of
their paintings.
Attached is a copy of a water colour portrait on paper
of R.K. painted by Ruth Dollman in 1910 which might
be of interest and seems to indicate some level of
familiarity, at least to the level of painter and subject.
Ruth painted mainly landscape scenes, exhibited
extensively and was published a number of times.
However, to my knowledge, this is the only portrait
that she painted which indicates that it may have
been special. Mowgli was painted in 1903.
Kind regards
Walter Dollman
This report is culled from information provided
by Amrit Dhillon in Delhi.
The Jindal Foundation, an Indian charity, has
donated funds for the restoration of a dilapidated
bungalow in the grounds of the JJ school of art, now
India’s leading university for art and architecture.
Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling, was the first
principal of the school, and young Rudyard lived in
the bungalow until he was 6.
The bungalow is set in an overgrown tropical
garden in the heart of Bombay, with a small bust of
RK at the entrance. It is hoped that the bungalow
will be restored to house a collection of Kipling
memorabilia. Approval has been obtained from the
city authorities, but because nothing from the
Kipling household has survived, the museum is
scouring the world for possible donors of
photographs, letters. manuscripts and former
possessions.
A prominent columnist with the Times of India,
Swapan Dasgupta, has said that this marks the start
of India’s recognition of Kipling as “the greatest
chronicler of India at the turn of the 20th century,
who captured the flavour of India to a point where
it became folklore”. Dasgupta is calling for a wider
reappraisal of India at the time of Empire he said
“It’s time for a wholesale re-examination of the
legacy of the British Raj, and Kipling is a very
important part of that legacy.”
Over 100 years ago this was said about Kipling’s verse...
In the wonderful series of lyrics, which have, one
after another, within the past few years captured
the whole world and become familiar almost to
weariness, the great achievement was that in them
he restored poetry to the use of the modern world
as a real force. In his hands it has ceased to be a
plaything of dilettante scholars and artists, and
become a mighty and practical instrument, - a
weapon of finest temper for polemic controversy, a
moral force compared with which the teachings of
philosophy, press and pulpit sounds feeble. It is
undoubtedly his very rudeness of strength , use of
slang expressions , and coarse realism of which we
have spoken, that gives his verse such virility and
pungency and timeliness, that it can shy its castor
into the roped arena of everyday men’s combats
and excitements, where the aesthetic elegance and
high-minded aloofness of Tennyson would be as
pathetically ludicrous as a knight stalking about in
clanking armour.
A Kipling Quiz - Crossword
(See the downloadable PDF for this months Crossword quiz - Download Issue 05)
A Kipling Poem
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The Last Suttee
Udai Chand lay sick to death
In his hold by Gungra hill
All night we heard the death gongs ring
For the soul of the dying Rajput king
All night beat up from the womens wing
A cry that we could not still
All night the barons came and went
The Lords of the outer guard
All night the cressets glimmered pale
On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail
Mewrar headstall and Marwar mail
That clinked in the palace yard
In the Golden Room on the palace roof
All night he fought for air
And there were sobbings behind the screen
Rustle and whisper of women unseen
And the hungry eyes of the Boondi queen
On the death she might not share
He passed at dawn—the deathfire leaped
From ridge to riverhead
From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars
And wail upon wail went up to the stars
Behind the grim zenana-bars
When they knew that the King was dead
The dumb priest knelt to tie his mouth
And robe him for the pyre
The Boondi queen beneath us cried
See now that we die as our mothers died
In the bridal bed by our masters side
Out women—to the fire
We drove the great gates home apace
White hands were on the sill
But ere the rush of the unseen feet
Had reached the turn to the open street
The bars shot down the guard-drum beat
We held the dovecot still
A face looked down in the gathering day
And laughing spoke from the wall
Ohe they mourn here let me by
Azizun the Lucknow nautch girl I
When the house is rotten the rats must fly
And I seek another thrall
For I ruled the King as neer did Queen
Tonight the Queens rule me
Guard them safely, but let me go
Or ever they pay the debt they owe
In scourge and torture, she leapt below
And the grim guard watched her flee
They knew that the King had spent his soul
On a Northbred dancing girl
That he prayed to a flat nosed Lucknow god
And kissed the ground where her feet had trod
And doomed to death at her drunken nod
And swore by her lightest curl
We bore the King to his fathers place
Where the tombs of the sunborn stand
Where the grey apes swing and the peacocks preen
On fretted pillar and jewelled screen
And the wild boar couch in the House of the Queen
On a drift of the desert sand
The herald read his titles forth
We set the logs aglow
Friend of the English, free from fear
Baron of Luni to Jeysulmeer
Lord of the Desert of Bikaneer
King of the Jungle Go
All night the red flame stabbed the sky
With wavering wind tossed spears
And out of a shattered temple crept
A woman who veiled her head and wept
And called on the King but the great King slept
And turned not for her tears.
One watched, a bowshot from the blaze
The silent street between
Who had stood by the King in sport and fray
To blade in ambush and boar at bay
And he was a baron old and grey
And kin to the Boondi queen
Small thought had he to mark the strife
Cold fear with hot desire
When thrice she leapt from the leaping flame
And thrice she beat her breast for shame
And thrice like a wounded dove she came
And moaned about the fire
He said O shameless put aside
The veil upon thy brow
Who held the king and all his land
To the wanton will of a harlots hand
Will the white ash rise from the blistered brand
Stoop down and call him now
Then she “ by the faith of my tarnished soul
All things I did not well
I had hoped to clear ere the fire died
And lay me down by my masters side
To rule in Heaven his only bride
While the others howl in Hell”
But I have felt the fires breath
And hard it is to die
Yet if I may pray a Rajput lord
To sully the steel of a Thakurs sword
With the base born blood of a trade abhorred
And the Thakur answered Ay
He drew and struck the straight blade drank
The life beneath the breast
I had looked for the Queen to face the flame
But the harlot that dies for the Rajput dame
Sister of mine pass free from shame
Pass with thy King to rest
The black log crashed above the white
The little flames and lean
Red as slaughter and blue as steel
That whistled and fluttered from head to heel
Leaped up anew for they found their meal
On the heart of the Boondi Queen
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