Rishon Rishon

Rikki-tikki-tavi

I read Rikki-tikki-tavi to my kids last night. I remember loving it as a child, and it's more self-contained than the Mowgli stories. It's a wonderful story. This is how it begins:

This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the Tailorbird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice, but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting. He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink. He could scratch himself anywhere he pleased with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use. He could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle brush, and his war cry as he scuttled through the long grass was: "Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!"

Noble indeed! He didn't shun the help of his allies, but also he didn't hesitate to do his calling. I remembered from childhood the images of Darzee, the good-for-nothing songbird, and Chuchundra, who is always "trying to make up his mind to run into the middle of the room", but is too fearful to ever do so. But Rikki-tikki-tavi is not the kind of hero who has to maintain his heroic pose, he is just himself.