Later edition cover of "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" by Rudyard Kipling
"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is a short story in the 1894 anthology The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling about adventures of a valiant young Indian grey mongoose.[1] It has often been anthologized and has been published several times as a short book. The Book 5 of Panchatantra, an ancient Indian collection, includes the mongoose and snake story, an inspiration for the "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" story.
The story follows the experiences of a mongoose named Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (from his chattering vocalizations) after he becomes the pet of an English family residing in India. He becomes friendly with some of the other creatures inhabiting the garden and is warned of the cobras Nag and Nagaina, who are angered by the human family's presence in their territory.
(There is also a snake named Karait that attacks Rikki But Rikki ends up breaking Karaits back.)
Accordingly, Nag enters the house's bathroom before dawn to kill the humans and make Rikki leave, so that his babies will grow up in a safe place. Rikki attacks Nag from behind in the bathroom. The ensuing struggle awakens the family, and the father kills Nag with a shotgun blast while Rikki bites down on the hood of the struggling male cobra.[2]
The grieving female snake Nagaina attempts revenge against the humans, cornering them as they have breakfast on a veranda. She is distracted by a female tailor bird, while Rikki destroys the cobra's unhatched brood of eggs, except for one. He carries it to where Nagaina is threatening to bite little Teddy, while his parents watch helplessly.
Nagaina recovers her egg but is pursued by Rikki away from the house to the cobra's underground nest, where an unseen final battle takes place. Rikki emerges triumphant from the hole, declaring Nagaina dead. With the immediate threat defeated, Rikki dedicates his life to guarding the garden, resulting in no snake even daring to enter it.
Adaptations[]
Director Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya shot an animated short film of this story titled Рикки-Тикки-Тави (Rikki-Tikki-Tavi) in 1965 in the Soviet Union, at the film studio Soyuzmultfilm. Ten years later, Chuck Jones adapted it for a half-hour television special in the United States.[3] The same year, Aleksandr Juridic and Nan Nashville directed a live-action feature film entitled Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.[4]
In the animetelevision series, Jungle Book Shōnen Mowgli, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is a supporting character who is the pet of an Indian family and is a heroic defender of them.
In the CGI series The Jungle Book (TV series), Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is an occasional character who is a friend of Mowgli.
Rikki Tikki Tavi public domain audiobook at LibriVox