The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond
"No-Spoiler Alert" For someone like me, who belongs to the Doon Valley, Ruskin Bond is a childhood favorite. But the Victorian Era authors transcended him during my formative years. Blue Umbrella's protagonist Biniya, a cowherd, leading the tedious life in her village, on her way back home stumbles upon a blue-umbrella, which defines her vanity in the rest of the book. She trades her lucky necklace for the blue umbrella, which has charmed her senses. She is eating, breathing, drinking, in short living the blue umbrella. Trading her long-possessed lucky charm wasn't an act of valor for her. The narrative includes the episodes of her on the verge of losing the blue umbrella, once in a deep slumber on the meadows and the umbrella scudded away by the forceful gust of wind into the chasm. She heroically, rescues it. Though, torn and washed away in luster, still the umbrella is a possession of pride in the entire village. A priced possession of her vanity. As this review d...