Book review
Mowgli
I have been to the Indian jungle many times, during three different periods of my life: the first one when I was a kid of six, the second when I was a tenth grader of about 15 and last just a month ago. I have been staying in Finland and working here for the last few months, so you would know that I couldn’t have been in an India forest. Yet, the Jungle Book took me there.
The first time I read the story – what I remember most was Mowgli sleeping on Baloo the bear’s stomach. It was a cartoon book which I had won by collecting the caps of a bottled drink called Mangola. My father must have read the book to me then. I remember the ending: Mowgli visits a village on the edge of the forest, and meets a girl.They like each other, and the story has a happy ending. The real tale, though, is quite unlike that.
I will leave out my narration of my own subsequent forays in the jungle and go to the story.. At the heart of the book is the life of Mowgli, who is found by a wolf couple while still a tiny man’s cub. The wolf couple adopts him as their own child. However, for Mowgli to run freely with the other cubs in the neighbourhood, the Wolf’s Council must agree.
At the Council meeting, Mowgli wins the heart of a bear, Baloo and a panther, Baghera, and they together support Mowgli’s induction in the pack. Or more precisely, as the law of jungle demands, Bahgera has to pay the Council to to get them to accept Mowgli – he does so by parting with a bull, his night’s kill, to the Council.
And so Mowgli comes to be part of the Wolf pack. Baloo teaches him all that he needs to know to survive and live with beasts, reptiles and birds, including the all-important ‘stranger’s call’ that Mowgli must make when he enters the habitat of other creatures.
The curious child that he is, Mowgli decides to test the boundaries of good conduct as laid down by Baloo. Mowgli befriends the monkeys, whom Baloo scorns as in his opinions they have no rules and no leader.
Mowgli’s honeymoon with the monkeys is short lived. Soon enough the monkeys take him away and my heart leapt as they carried Mowgli away over the tree tops swinging from one branch to another. When the monkeys hold him captive, Mowgli sadly discovers that he has made a mistake. Baloo and Baghera are hot on the monkeys’ pursuit, but do they get in time and are they able to rescue Mowgli from the the monkey’s clutches? And even if they do, at what price? Mowgli learns more of the rules of the jungle.
Over time, Mowgli must defend himself from other foes, including some members of his own wolf brethren. His real friends won’t desert him, but not everyone in the wolf pack is so understanding. The final battle though is with the tiger, Sher Khan, who has always demanded Mowgli from the wolves.
But before that epic battle is fought, Mowgli decides to visit man’s land and walks into a neighbourhood village. He has nothing on his person but a lean, brawny body and the rules from the jungle in his heart as he enters civilization. A kindly lady takes him as her son, clothes and feeds him.
Hungry for knowledge, Mowgli picks up the language ..Small kids make fun of him, but he lets them be as that was what the jungle ethics taught him. However, Mowgli won’t let anyone food people. When he sees the local village hunter making up stories and bragging about deeds that Mowgli knows is untrue, he exposes him in front of other villagers.
Ultimately, though, cunning villagers wounded by Mowgli’s crusades to uphold the truth, cast him as a sorcerer, to be thrown out of the village. This happens just when Mowgli has returned from a heroic battle. Even his foster mother is unable to save him. It is here I find that the book ceases to be just a children’s book but more an allegory on the social ills of superstition and mob violence psycology that has plagued Indians for centuries.
It’s been a long time since I first read this great novel by Rudyard Kipling. My father, who read it to me then, is no more, but the power of this novel is such that reading it now I remember what I felt when I first read it, and that moment of joy I shared with my father.
- Goodreads rating – 3.91
- SUMMARY – Aditya Kelekar