The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

   The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by English famous Nobel writer Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893-1894. The original publications contain lots of illustrations. Rudyard Kipling was born in India and spent his first six years of his childhood in India. After ten years, he went back in India and worked there for another six and half years. Rudyard Kipling was written these stories for his lovely daughter Josephine. Josephine was died in 1899, when she was only six years old.

   The Second Jungle Book was published in 1895, it includes five further stories about Mowgli. These stories were fables, using animals to explain the human behaviour to give moral lessons. The verses of The Law of the Jungle, for example, lay down rules for the safety of individuals, families and communities. Rudyard Kipling put in those ideas and illusions nearly everything he knew or "heard or dreamed about the Indian jungle." Other readers have interpreted the work as typically of the politics and society of the time. The best-known of them are the three stories turning around the adventures of an cast off "man cub Mowgli who was raised by wolves in the Indian jungle.

   We write a very interesting story (Mowgli’s story) from The Jungle Book here in a very short form for you...

           The Jungle Book - part 1

                - by Rudyard Kipling

   It was a bright moonlit night. Father wolf prepared to go for hunting. Mother wolf and her four cubs sat huddled in the cave. Father wolf was just about to jump downhill when he saw Tabaqui, the dish-licker standing before him.
 
   “Good luck to you, O chief of wolves!” said the jackal Tabaqui.
 
   Now all the animals hate Tabaqui as he was a mischief maker. He lived on the left-overs of the hunting animals and the garbage thrown out by the villagers of the neighborhood. Tonight also he was making mischief.
 
   “Sher khan has decided to hunt in these parts,” said Tabaqui.
 
   “He cannot change his hunting field without informing the committee!” growled father wolf.
 
   Sher khan was the tiger who lived at the other end of the jungle. “I can already head Sher Khan nearby,” said Tabaqui again, taking to his heels for he feared the anger of father wolf. Suddenly the wolves heard the cry of a human child.
 
   In the bushes they found a baby crying. Nearby they heard the growl of Sher Khan, who was probably stalking the child.

   They chased him away and brought the human child into the cave. Mother wolf named him “Mowgli” and decided to bring him up as her own child along with her cubs. 

   On the meeting day of the committee, father wolf took Mowgli before the council. He wanted to seek their permission to keep the human child in the jungle.

   Bagheera, the black panther spoke for Mowgli, “Brothers, if you allow Mowgli to stay here, I promise to teach him the laws of the jungle.”

   “We need another vote. Who speaks with Bagheera?”  asked Akela the leader, sitting on the Council-Rock.

   “I too wish the man-cub to stay and will help to teach him.” Spoke Baloo, the bear.

   Thus the council passed the resolution that Mowgli could stay with the wolf family. Father wolf was happy that mother wolf’s wish to adopt the child was granted. He returned home beaming with joy alone with Mowgli.

   Twelve years passed.Mowgli grew up strong and alert. His friends Bagheera and Baloo taught him to hunt and instructed him well in the laws of the jungle. 

   “Beware of Sher Khan. Father wolf saved you from him when you were a child but he still remembers you.” They warned him. 

   “Man will trap you. You have to be intelligent to avoid the traps.” taught Bagheera.

   Mowgli loved his friends dearly and would do anything to please them. He learned to climb trees and jump from branch to branch. Whenever he did something new, he would look to his friends for support.

Bagheera, Mowgli and Baloo

   Mowgil’s days were spent in playing and hunting with his friends and night with mother wolf.

   “They have no laws and waste their time in plying all the time,” warned Baloo about the monkeys. “Stay away from them.”

   But Mowgli loved the way the monkeys jumped from tree to tree. So, one day when both Baloo and Bagheera were asleep in the sun, Mowgli went to play with the monkeys. They chattered away all the time while they jumped from tree to tree. They plucked fruits from the trees and shared them with Mowgli.

   Mowgli saw all their hideouts. They told him strange tales about the jungle and the villages around the jungle. Mowgli had never seen the villages or any man in his life. The stories interested him greatly. He listened forgetting the time.

   The chattering voices of the monkeys, their playful ways made Mowgli very happy. He did not wish to leave them and yet go he must.

   “Please don’t go! Don’t leave us so soon! Stay with us a little more!” cried the monkeys in a chorus.

   “No, I must go now. My friends must be looking for me.” replied Mowgli.

   The monkeys pulled him by his hands, climbed on his shoulders to stop him from going. “Let me go now. I promise I shall come and play with you again.” Promised Mowgli. But the monkeys would not hear of it.

   “Your friends, Baloo and Bagheera will never let you come.”, they cried.

    Baloo and Bagheera heard the chattering of the monkeys and they cries of Mowgli. They were alarmed and went rushing to rescue him.

   “On guard! Stand aside! Set him free at once!” with these words Bagheera and Baloo jumped on the monkeys. But they were too many in number. It took Bagheera and Baloo a long time to drive away the monkeys. They had to fight long and hard before the monkeys finally took to their heels. In the fight Bagheera and Baloo were hurt both.

   “I hope you have learnt your lesson now,” said Bagheera angrily.

   “Now I hope you will not be stupid enough to play with the monkeys and in future, always heed our advice.”, growled Baloo.

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