Book Review : The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book


Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book is acknowledged as a masterpiece of children’s literature. We should also now recognize that our generation will probably be the last to have actually read it. It will be too difficult to read for future generations of children brought up on computer games and Cartoon Network, and adults will dismiss it because it features talking animals.

That would be a mistake. Kipling’s story of the lost “man-cub” (Mowgli) who is raised by a Wolf-pack, taught by a Bear and a panther and his final return to his own kind has a very adult theme to it. Of belonging to a community and then realizing you don’t. From his acceptance on Council Rock as a member of the Pack – an acceptance bought on the word of the aging Baloo and a kill made by Bagheera – to his triumphant return to the Council Rock as the renegade returned, with Sher Khan’s hide on his back, and then back to his village, Mowgli never fits in. He’s accepted at best, but he’s different. It’s the individuals – Akela the Great Grey Wolf, deposed as leader of the pack, Baloo the old bear, irrelevant to all but Mowgli, Bagheera, the panther who was raised in captivity, and Messua his presumptive mother – who are true to him. As communities, both the pack and the village fail him.

But the parable is strictly secondary. What stands out is the beauty of the story itself. Kipling’s style here is refreshingly lucid - one can almost imagine an old story-teller gathering the children of the regiment around him and telling them the fantastic story of the boy who got lost and was raised by a jungle of talking beasts. Telling them of the heroism of Akela, the villainy of Shere Khan, the cunning of his lackey, Tabaqui the wolf, the menace of Kaa the Python and the horror of the Red Dog, the Dhol. And for a moment it’s easy to forget that Kipling was a colonial Brit. For ‘The Jungle Book’ is as Indian a piece of work as any.

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