Reading Kipling in Brooklyn

By Ellen Acconcia

“What is a bishti?” I wondered, eyelids heavy, drifting on the waves of an incomprehensible battle as my mom perched on the side of my bed reading “Gunga Din” from a worn copy of Kipling.

What mother reads Kipling to her 7-year-old? My older mother’s parenting—which often resulted in a unique blend of wisdom and unexpected gaps—didn’t phase me as a small child. It was only when I began to mature that I noticed the differences between her and my friends’ mothers—mothers who corralled rafts of kids, sat on the stoop watching over the boys playing stickball, the girls playing Barbies or, during the steamy summer months, monitoring the entire block’s population of kids as we ran in and out of the fire hydrant. 

My mother worked at night and slept during the day. While she was at home if I needed anything, I was often out the door early and only back inside the apartment for a drink or some money for a candy bar. Often those other mothers would take seven or eight of us with our towels, beach bags and tuna sandwiches on the journey that included subways and elevated trains to a day at Rockaway Beach. Back then, all that was necessary was for me to say, “Mom, Mrs.— is going to take us to the beach, ok?” She’d fish in her purse for a few bills and give her blessing.

Later, flustered and unprepared when I got my period (my mother had already gone through menopause) she disappointed me with her ignorance of my anticipation of this milestone moment. I was excited to join the growing cadre of my friends who showed up at school with that knowing look. As I did with most emotions back then, I hid my contempt of the situation—her having to give me an old towel until she could get to the store for the necessary items—and blinked back tears. One of my friends told me that when she got her period, her aunt slapped her—albeit gently, but still a slap. I had no idea why. I suppose it symbolized the pain that women would suffer for the rest of their lives. When I told my mother she, “tsk-tsked” in her customary Protestant way, insinuating that this was some barbaric cultural ritual that we, in our WASPishness would not be practicing. When later in life, I referred to my mother as “stoic,” I didn’t realize at the time that her lack of awareness might be simply the consequence of being raised in a more reserved era where frank discussions about sex and emotions were uncommon.

Having lived through pivotal historical events like the Depression, a world war and significant social changes with steely determination, my mother might have been considered “cold.” Later, with maturity between us, I thought of her more as a model of quiet strength and adaptability.

A nonstop reader, she later shared with me her copy of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” numerous Taylor Caldwell paperbacks, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” her love of Dickens and, of course, that copy of Kipling. I had large format editions of the familiar “Just So Stories,” and the Disney-fied “Jungle Book,” but at bedtime it was “Gunga Din” I begged for. In 1960s Brooklyn, in our tiny, four-room railroad flat, the tale of a humble water-carrier’s heroism washed over me like a dark, dramatic lullaby. I loved the mysterious and exotic picture it painted, set in a faraway time and unfamiliar locale.

Our small family was so disconnected that over time I came to realize that my mother, daughter of a British immigrant who, as a victim of the Depression’s “Poor Man’s Divorce,” left the family to disappear onto New York City’s unforgiving streets, must have found a kind of solace in all things English. She ensured the nurturing of my own Anglophilia. Later I thought that perhaps this song of Din's unwavering loyalty was a tether to her past—an echo of vanished family and a father she barely knew.

As she reached the ode’s emotional conclusion, I often held my breath—my favorite part!

You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!

Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,

By the livin’ Gawd that made you,

You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

As my mother’s voice rose and fell, I waited for what I knew the finale would be, as Gunga Din meets his maker and his captain affirms him “a better man than I am!” As I grew older, I asked more questions about who these men were, why they were fighting and what the captain’s words really meant in the context of British Colonialism.

But back then, it didn’t matter. I hung on every word of the sing-song-y text, oblivious to its political complexity or its later fall from favor. I only knew this language—strange, and at once colorful and mysterious—alluded to something far away from the world outside our walk-up and the city’s cacophony.

I didn't recognize then how different these moments were, how alien it was to our insular, lower-middle-class world. I only remember relishing the quiet magic of those evenings with my mother, so often out of her element as an older mom. I floated along on the comfort of her voice, the hush between words, the dramatic pauses and the unspoken sense that this ritual was ours alone.

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A former marketing and communications professional, originally from New York City, Ellen Acconcia currently writes from her home in coastal North Carolina. She has served as a marketing director, publicist, and communications expert in industries as varied as book publishing, the performing arts, economic development and professional association management. Her work has been published by Next Avenue (PBS), Business Insider and The Sunlight Press, among others. A member of the North Carolina Writers Network, she has a certification in creative nonfiction from New York University.