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"The King’s Ankus" forms part of the author’s
"The Second Jungle Book" which features the adventures
Mowgli, the wolf boy, and his animal companions. Mowgli is led
by Kaa, the python, to a ruin where lies the treasure of a lost
kingdom, guarded by a giant cobra. Mowgli defeats the cobra and
takes with him a jewel-studded ‘Ankus’ (an elephant-goad) as
a souvenir. Left on the ground as Mowgli sleeps up in the
branches of a tree, the ‘Ankus’ falls in the hands of a
hunter. In the morning, Mowgli, following the hunter’s trail,
finds the ‘Ankus’ but also discovers that during the night
six men had died fighting over the jewel-studded piece.
Appalled, the wolf boy takes the ‘Ankus’ back to the ruin
and returns it to the care of the cobra.
"Red
Dog" narrates how Mowgli tricks a pack of about 200 wild
dogs first into a group of bee hives where many of them die of
bee sting, and then into a wolf ambush set up by him where the
rest of the pack perishes. In the battle, Mowgli loses his
friend Akela, the long wolf, whose last advice to Mowgli was
that he should return to his own kind.
"Spring
Running", the other story in this volume, describes Mowgli’s
craving for human company. He runs across the jungle into a
human settlement and finds his mother. Saying goodbye to his
jungle friends, he settles down to live with his mother, and
thus ends the tale of the human infant raised in the jungle by
wolves.
"The Miracle
of Purun Bhagat" is the story an able administrator, Sir
Purun Das, who as Prime Minister of a progressive princely state
of India, builds roads, schools and hospitals in the state and
becomes a favourite of the British. But when the time comes, he
renounces the material world and becomes a wandering mendicant,
finally settling down in a temple on a hill in the Himalayas.
The people of the village down the slope call him ‘Bhagat’
and take care of his meagre needs of food, water, etc. One
night, a huge landslide brings the hillside rumbling down the
slope, and the ‘Bhagat’ once again becomes a man of action
and leads the entire population of the village down the slope
and then up the adjoining hill, safe from the massive landslide.
The villagers are saved but they lose their ‘Bhagat’ in
whose memory they build a shrine and name the hill after him.
"The
undertakers", the other story in this volume, is another
animal story which is a long conversation between three
characters — an adjutant-crane, a jackal and a crocodile. The
jackal flatters the crocodile, the crane mocks at the jackal and
the crocodile recalls his adventures — how he caught his prey
and how the villagers accorded him a holy status. The
conversation continues all night and at the end of it, the
crocodile is shot by a couple of hunters from the adjoining rail
bridge.
How to find
the Best Doctor
by Dr
Aniruddha Malpani and Dr Anjali Malpani; UBS Publishers’
Distributors, New Delhi. Pages 238. Rs 215.
 When do you look
for a doctor? Obviously, when you are sick, you would answer.
But the doctors who have authored this book have different
ideas. They maintain that your search for a doctor should begin
when you are in perfect health and in no need of immediate
medical help. The best time to find a doctor is when you do not
need one, they say, because the stress of the illness makes it
difficult to find the right doctor. Find out details such as the
doctor’s clinic hours, fees, qualifications, hospital
attachments and his special interests. A telephone call to the
doctor’s receptionist and a few intelligent questions will
tell you a good deal about the doctor and his practice before
you actually meet him.
The book starts
with the caution that the best way to ensure that you receive
the right care is to pick the right doctor, and then proceeds to
discuss major issues such as your rights and responsibilities,
how to make sense of medical jargon and the importance of the
patient’s consent before the treatment starts. The book also
covers sensitive areas such as what course is open to a patient
if he is not satisfied with the treatment given to him. There is
also a specimen letter of complaint which can serve as a guide.
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KIPLING
has written some fine books for children containing some highly
amusing animal stories. He also wrote a number of books for
grown-ups, mostly collections of short stories. His writings give
vivid glimpses of life in 19th century India, though you can discern
an apparent bias in favour of the white race and an attempt to
glorify the Raj. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1907, but the brief introduction of the author on the back covers of
these reprints mention 1970 as the year in which he was given this
honour. (Kipling died in 1936). This, and some other slips in the
texts, do not speak highly of the publisher’s standard of
production, although the cover designs are colourful enough to draw
attention.
