A British soldier remembers the Indian water-carrier his regiment mocked and beat, and the day that man saved his life. The poem ends with one of Kipling's most famous lines: "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" This free worksheet has Kipling's full poem with numbered lines, vocabulary, five discussion questions, a writing prompt and an answer key. No signup needed.
Grades 9–12 · Common Core RL.9-10.6, RL.9-10.4, RL.9-10.3 · US Letter PDF, with an answer key on the last page
What’s on the worksheet
"Gunga Din" appeared in 1890 and was collected in Barrack-Room Ballads (1892). It is a dramatic monologue in the Cockney dialect of a British private serving in India. A bhisti carried water for the troops. Readers should notice both the soldier's racist language and contempt and the way the poem turns that contempt against him.
Vocabulary
- bhisti: a water-carrier for the army in India
- clime: climate; region
- regimental: belonging to a regiment of soldiers
- goatskin water-bag: the bag Din used to carry water
- mussick: a leather water-bag (dialect)
- dooli: a covered stretcher for carrying the wounded
- canteen: a soldiers' shop selling drink
- flayed: whipped hard; stripped the skin
Discussion questions
- How do the soldiers treat Gunga Din in the first half of the poem? Quote two lines.
- What does the speaker mean when he says Din "didn't seem to know the use o' fear"?
- What happens on "the night / When I dropped be'ind the fight"?
- How does the refrain "Din! Din! Din!" change in meaning from the start to the end of the poem?
- Why is the last line surprising? Does it undo the speaker's earlier prejudice, or only partly?
Writing prompt
Rewrite one stanza from Gunga Din's point of view, in plain modern English, describing the soldiers who order him around.
The answer key is included in the PDF, on its own page for teachers.