Indian Literary Boy Characters


Figure 1.-- Here is a modern edition of 'The Jungle Book'. Notice here the illustrator has made the man cub Mowgli an Indian boy. This usually was the case. Indian Most illustrators make him an Indian boy.

We know absolutely nothing about Indian children's literature at this time. There is a rich traditiional (pre-British) literature in India. We do know if there are any important boy characters. We do know some important Indian boy characters, but the ones we know have been created by foreign authors. The most famous is surely Kim, but of course he was an English boy created by Rudyard Kipling. And Indian boy he also created was Mowgli, another very famous boy character. Another boy character created by a foreign author is Chendru. Actually he appears to have been a real boy with a fictional story built around him. The man cub Mowgli Kippenger created in The Jungle Book is an India boy, but as written he is totaly devoid of human culture meaning the absence of any Indian cultural setting. Hopefully our Indian readers will provide some insights into boy characters in Indian literature.

Chendru

Another boy character created by a foreign author is Chendru. Actually he appears to have been a real boy with a fictional story built around him. The book was written by Astrid Sucksdorff, wife of Swesish filmaker Arne Sucksdorff and the daughter of Sten Bergman, a noted Swedish explorer. She wrote the book while with her husband who was filming a movie in central India.

Kim

We do know some important Indian boy characters, but the ones we know have been created by foreign authors. The most famous is surely Kim, but of course he was an English, actuslly and Irish boy, not an Indian boy. Rudyard Kipling's final and most famous novel, Kim was about the Irish orphan who follows a Tibetan monk while being trained in British espionage. You can't get more exciting than that. Kim was Kimball O'Hara, an orphaned son of a British seargeant serving in India. The 1950 American MGM film version with Dean Stockwell was especially good. In it Kim wore a very smart uniform with a red jacket and cap which he did not like. Kipling like Stephenson also married an American lady. He lived in the U.S for a time. He wrote an unfinished biography about his childhood called Something of Myself. There is a good story about 19th century childhood.

Mowgli

An Indian boy he also created was Mowgli, another very famous boy character. The man cub Mowgli Kippenger created in The Jungle Book is an India boy, but as written he is virtually devoid of human culture meaning the absence of any Indian cultural setting with one exception. We do not know if The Jungle Book is popular in India. Surely the story is well known by all Cub Scouts, but they are all a very small part of the population. It is clear that Mowgli is an Indian child from when he is first intrioduced in the story. "Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked brown baby who could just walk." Mowgli is naked throughout the Jungle Book stories except the time spent in the village when "He had to wear a cloth round him, which annoyed him horribly."







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Created: 5:12 AM 1/27/2011
Last updated: 5:12 AM 1/27/2011