Gunga Din

"Gunga Din" is an 1892 poem by Rudyard Kipling, set in British India. It was the inspiration for a 1939 film of the same title.

"Tho' I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”

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The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of an English soldier in India, about an Indian water-bearer (a bhishti) who saves the soldier's life but is soon shot and killed. In the final three lines, the soldier regrets the abuse he dealt to Din and admits that Din is the better man of the two. The poem was published as one of the set of martial poems called the Barrack-Room Ballads.

In contrast to Kipling's later poem "The White Man's Burden", "Gunga Din" (/ˌɡʌŋɡə ˈdin/) is named after the Indian, portraying him as a heroic character who is not afraid to face danger on the battlefield as he tends to wounded men. The English soldiers who order Din around and beat him for not bringing them water fast enough are presented as being callous and shallow, and ultimately inferior to him.

Although "Din" is frequently pronounced to rhyme with "pin", the rhymes within the poem make it clear that it should be pronounced /ˈdin/ to rhyme with "green".

The poem inspired a 1939 adventure film of the same name from RKO Pictures starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Fontaine, and Sam Jaffe in the title role.

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