Kimball O'Hara is an Irish orphan, but he runs free in the streets of  India. As a boy, he shows self-reliance and resourcefulness, running  errands for Mahbub Ali, who works for the British Secret Service. Kim  also meets a Tibetan lama who is on a quest to be freed from the Wheel  of Life and becomes his disciple. Together they have wonderful  adventures on the exotically colorful Grand Trunk Road through the  Indian countryside. Then Kim is pulled into the great game of British  imperial espionage and becomes a member of the Secret Service, even  capturing documents from the enemy spies. Yet Kim is greatly attached to  the lama and begins to feel the conflicting pulls between a life of  contemplation and one of action.