In 1878 Kipling was admitted to United Services College at Westward Ho!, a college that prepared young men for the military. Lacking the financial resources to continue his education it was decided that Rudyard should return to India. He returned in October 1882 and began writing at the Civil and Military Gazette. By all accounts, including his own, writing for the paper was a labor of love and the young Kipling was often covered in ink from his writings. In 1887 he was transferred to England. But it was during his time in India that he began to write in earnest and in 1888 he published six collections of short stories.

In 1889 he left the paper after a dispute, sold the rights to his short story collections, and used the money to travel the world. That trip took him through America and he met Mark Twain before returning to London. He married Carrie Balestier in 1892. They travelled to America and Japan. Then back to America where they settled from 1892 - 1896. The couple enjoyed many happy years and Kipling wrote The Jungle Book, Captain's Courageous and some poetry including Gunga Din.

They returned to England and during the early 1900s the world was treated to a great writer at the peak of career. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907. He continued to write until the 1930s, dying in 1936 from a perforated ulcer at age 70.

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Considering that Rudyard left India when he was five years old, I wondered how and why the place had made such a deep impression upon him that it remained the primary part of his identity throughout his whole life. The phrase "strong light and darkness" had hovered in my mind for several weeks when I chanced upon a two page photograph by Jody MacDonald in the August 2012 issue of National Geographic Magazine (the photo is supposedly for sale at printsNGS.com, but I cannot find where to purchase it). It lacks power in this small size, but this photograph gives life to his phrase "strong light and darkness."