How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #4
A priest clothed me and gave me a new name... One priest, however, was a fool. The clothes are very heavy, but I am a Sahib and my heart is heavy too. They send me to a school and beat me. I do not like the air and water here. Come then and help me, Mahbub Ali, or send me some money, for I have not sufficient to pay the writer who writes this. (6.46)
Poor Kim's first encounter with the world of discipline and order is pretty brutal: he has been beaten, and he feels homesick and out of place. So Kim writes to Mahbub Ali to come and rescue him, but Mahbub Ali leaves Kim where he is—he believes that, as unpleasant as Kim's lessons in duty have been, he has to learn to be responsible for more than just his own interests.
This raises a philosophical question for us: Is duty always a painful thing to learn? Are there duties out there that you find pleasant and fulfilling to perform, or is duty by definition something you don't want to do, but that you have to do anyway?
Quote #5
A day and a half have I waited, not because I was led by any affection towards thee—that is no part of the Way—but, as they said at the Tirthankars' Temple, because, money having been paid for learning, it was right that I should oversee the end of the matter. They resolved my doubts most clearly. I had a fear that, perhaps, I came because I wished to see thee—misguided by the Red Mist of affection. It is not so... (7.64)
This passage strikes us as kind of—odd. The lama is telling Kim, Hey, look, I'm not checking in on you because I love you—no, I'm keeping up with you because I paid for your education and I want to see how that investment turns out. Kind of cold, right?
Why is the lama phrasing his interest in Kim in terms of duty instead of affection? What religious objections does he raise to his relationship with Kim? How does the lama's talk of duty and responsibility regarding Kim seem to affect Kim himself, as someone who the lama goes on later to describe as a spiritual grandson to him?
Quote #6
'Because he is so fond of me. Suppose you were fond of someone, and you saw someone come, and the man you were fond of was more pleased with him than he was with you, what would you do?'
Kim thought. Lurgan repeated the sentence slowly in the vernacular.
'I should not poison that man,' said Kim reflectively, 'but I should beat that boy—if that boy was fond of my man. But first, I would ask that boy if it were true.'
'Ah! He thinks everyone must be fond of me.' (9.76-9)
Lurgan explains to Kim that the Hindu youth he has raised is so attached to him that he will actually try to poison Kim and/or Lurgan out of jealousy over the all of the attention that Lurgan is giving to Kim.
First of all, we have to point out that this notion of the super-emotional person of color is a classic racist stereotype. It plays on biased ideas that white people are more rational than people of color, which supposedly justifies European imperialist domination of other countries. So this whole representation of the Kim-Lurgan-Hindu boy triangle is based on racist assumptions.
But we are also interested in Kim's claim that, if he was fond of a man who seemed to be paying a lot of attention to someone else, he would "beat that boy," his rival. For Kim, it would be the fault of the other kid for taking his father figure away from him… but we think the duty should really be Lurgan's to make sure that the Hindu boy continues to feel like his father figure cares about him.