First thing first. Re Mandeep's views on Kipling: Mandeep, dear friend, you have the full right to hold any view on any subject and also the full right to express it. There is no doubt about that. However, at the same time, you'll admit that we who love Kipling, also have a similar right. That's why, although I respect your opinion, I must say that I don't share it. So we agree to disagree on this and proceed further from here. I don't want to clutter the list by writing at length on Kipling, as he may not be everybody's pet subject - albeit for reasons different from yours. There are many who dislike his heavy style and excessive use of the jargon, the vernacular, and the dialect. Many find him overrated and, of course, too dated. But despite all these truisms, the fact remains that Kipling was no ordinary writer. He was precocious, prescient, perspicacious, and preternaturally poignant. But he was NOT an imperialist, IMO, in spite of Orwell's long apologia. I have made a deep study of his works and I have come to a conclusion that Kipling was anything but. He was much maligned and much misunderstood and also feared. During his lifetime, he had become a burden for the ruling classes of Britain. So it's no wonder he should be held in disrespect in the former colonies also. The reasons are too varied to mention here. I'll simply state that recent studies, done in hindsight, dispassionately, by internationally acclaimed scholars who cherish democracy, have suggested that Kipling's so-called imperialism was a myth, milked and exploited by unscrupulous traders, war-mongers, colonial administrators, and others of their ilk. They found in him a convenient peg to hang their coats. And if he resented this, he was by then probably too old and also dejected by the death of his only son in the first World War to react otherwise. So, let's just say we both see Kipling differently and we both stick to our views. Let's stop this here. Just one thing in passing. On 27 July 2008, I'd sent a mail to the list, which quoted a letter to the TLS, in which the writer had said that India's former philosopher-president Dr Radhakrishnan was an admirer of Kipling. To some extent, even Mahatma Gandhi liked his works. And my other favourite author P G Wodehouse was heavily influenced by him. So, if I err, I err in the company of three of the greatest persons I admire. :-) All said and done, Kipling merely represented the Zeitgeist of that era. And that era was not HIS creation, he was just a product of it. --- Harshawardhan, stepping down from his soapbox.