The Blue Umbrella is an 1980 Indian novel written by Ruskin's link. It was adapted in 2005 Hindi film of the same name, directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, who later won the National Film Award for Best Children's Film. In 2012, the novel was adapted into a comic by the Amar Chitra Katha publications, titled, The Blue Umbrella - Stories by Ruskin Bond, and included another story, Angry River. This story appeared in the Bond collection of short stories, Children's Omnibus.
In a small village in Himachal Pradesh, where a girl, Binya, exchanges her old leopard claw necklace for a beautiful blue ruffled umbrella. In the village the merchant (Ram Bharosa) keeps an old shop in ruins and sells Coca Cola bottles because of no hot water bottle and sells sweets to the school going to the children as a credit and recovers their money as an ax and an earing etc. . an umbrella is a lovely thing to have. The people of the village fall in love with their umbrella. Soon the merchant becomes envious of the umbrella and tries to buy it from Binya but she refuses.
Over time, Ram Bharosa's desire to obtain the umbrella also increases. Schools are closed due to the arrival of the monsoon and Ram Bharosa employs a boy from the next village called Rajaram to work in the store. When Rajaram comes to know his master's desire to possess the umbrella, he offers to steal it for him. The grocer, unable to control his craving, accepts it. Rajaram tries to steal the umbrella but fails and upon being captured, it gives the name of Ram Bharosa. Now they all stopped coming to Ram Bharosa's tent. However, Binya realizes her mistake and that she should not have shown her umbrella because for now, because of it, Ram Bharosa was suffering. In the end, Binya gives the umbrella to Ram Bharosa, who returns his favor in the future by giving him a necklace with a bear claw.