In Kim, the Grand Trunk Road symbolizes the diversity and abundance of life in India. Running the full length of the country, the road offers unfettered access to the full spectrum of India’s natural wonders—a sensory pilgrimage of sights, sounds, and scents. From the elevated perspective of the road, travelers are presented with India’s sweeping landscapes and abundant wildlife. Beyond the natural world, the road also affords its travelers ample opportunities for people-watching, being the country’s primary thoroughfare. Kim, for instance, reveling in this opportunity, notes the diverse cast of individuals and groups traveling alongside him on the road, from “strong-scented Sansis” and “wild-haired Sikh[s],” to marriage processions, and even whole villages. In short, the Grand Trunk Road represents, in the narrator’s own words, “a river of life.”
However, the diversity of experiences offered by the Grand Trunk Road is met with equally diverse reactions. While Kim opens himself up to the road’s seductive, earthly offerings, the lama takes a more conservative stance, turning inward. His gaze cast toward his feet, the lama ignores the bubbling world around him, seeing it as a superficial distraction from his spiritual journey. Thus, the Grand Trunk Road becomes not only a symbol of the human world at large, but also a litmus test for differing worldviews. While Kim finds himself in “seventh heaven” on the Grand Trunk Road, the lama experiences a trial of temptation.
The Grand Trunk Road Quotes in Kim
The lama as usual, was deep in meditation, but Kim’s bright eyes were wide open. This broad, smiling river of life, he considered, was a vast improvement on the cramped and crowded Lahore streets. There were new people and new sights at every stride – castes he knew and castes that were altogether out of his experience.
This was seeing the world in real truth; this was life as he would have it – bustling and shouting, the buckling of belts, and the beating of bullocks and creaking of wheels, lighting of fires and cooking of food, and new sights at every turn of the approving eye… India was awake, and Kim was in the middle of it, more awake and more excited than anyone, chewing on a twig that he would presently use as a toothbrush; for he borrowed right-and-left-handedly from all the customs of the country he knew and loved.
The Grand Trunk Road Symbol Timeline in Kim
