Tome And Plume: Does UP’s ‘Dina Sanichar’ Become ‘MP’s Mowgli?’
· Free Press Journal
Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): And that is how Mowgli was entered into the Seeonee Wolf Pack for the price of a bull and on Baloo’s good word — Narrator, Mowgli's Brothers, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
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A reader of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book fastens his idea on searching for the home of its fascinating protagonist, Mowgli. A pack of wolves raises him in the Pench forests spread between Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Yet Mowgli belongs to MP.
Those who have read the stories of Tarzan, a character sketched by Edgar Rice Burroughs in Tarzan of the Apes in 1912, may discover some similarities between him and Mowgli. Both belong to the wild. A pack of wolves raises Mowgli in Indian woods, and apes foster Tarzan in African forests.
Human characteristics and animal instincts prevail over their behaviour. Tarzan, son of a British aristocrat, matures in the forest, but Mowgli remains a child – an Indian child.
Kipling sketches the character of his 'Wolf Boy’ against the backdrop of the Pench Tiger Reserve in Seoni, also known as 'Mowgli Land'. The author wrote that a pack of wolves raised the boy in the Seonee (Seoni) hills.
But how and where Kipling discovered his protagonist? A band of hunters found the real-life six-year-old ‘Wolf Boy’, Dina Sanichar, among wolves in a cave in the Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh in 1867. A pack of wolves raised the child who, critics say, inspired Kipling to paint the portrait of Mowgli in The Jungle Book.
The hunters took Dina to an orphanage in Agra. Because he arrived at the orphanage on a Saturday, the officials named him 'Sanichar'. He could never shun his wild behaviour and howled, grunted, and snarled like a wolf. Initially, he moved on all fours. After a while, he turned into a chain smoker and died of tuberculosis in 1895.
When Sanichar remained in the orphanage, Kipling worked as a journalist for The Pioneer in Allahabad from November 1887 to March 1889, and the newspaper gave extensive coverage to the story of ‘wolf child’. So, Kipling’s acquaintance with Sanichar leaves little scope for doubt, and The Jungle Book saw the light of the day in 1894, a year before the death of Sanichar.
The yarn of Dina Sanichar delineates the character of a real feral boy, throwing light on the importance of childhood conduct, but his story still fascinates many people, and legends about him endure in Bulandshahar and its surroundings.
The author, however, never visited the Pench forest, but he based The Jungle Book on an adventure story written by Robert Armitage Sterndale, Seonee (Seoni) or Camp life on the Satpura Range: a tale of Indian adventure, published in March 1877.
Kipling’s delineation vivifies the landscape of Seoni and tells the tale of the influence of a child over the natural coyness of the animal. The protagonist of the story, Mowgli, remains loyal to his parenting pack of wolves, mastering the laws of the woodland. Animal traits and human consciousness combine in Mowgli, embodying deep duality. He knows how to make tools, a skill which the animals lack, and protects his friends from the threat of Shere Khan, who symbolises ruthless aristocrats of the British era. Critics say so.
The Jungle Book speaks of a wise and quite black panther, Bagheera, but panthers generally showcase hostile, sneaky, brigand-like, merciless, and treacherous tendencies. The tigers, once tamed, befriend humans.
Sterndale draws a real-life panther who remains in contact with humans. Kipling’s panther finds a place in the form of Bagheera in The Jungle Book.
Sterndale writes panther cubs remain amusing. But once they grow up, they behave ruthlessly. But Kipling’s Bagheera always helps his readers cotton on to him. Similarly, Baloo, a bear, represents the friendly character of bears, and raised from a young age, they easily befriend humans.
Both Kipling and Sterndale enliven the Wainganga River, forest-clad Seoni highlands, wildlife, and human life in hamlets near the forest.
A journey to Mowgli Land offers a lifetime experience. The emerging morning sun, bathing the serene hilltops of Seoni and the surrounding woodland, reminds a visitor of the scenes from The Jungle Book. Mowgli may have never really existed, but his friends Baloo, Bagheera, and his rival Shere Khan may emerge from the womb of the Seoni woodland to thrill a visitor.
Arup Chakaraborty
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