This is The Real-Life Mowgli
The story from Jungle Book isn’t fiction. It’s based on a real person, a real man-cub
When Rudyard Kipling wrote the Jungle Book in 1894, few understood where his inspiration originated from. The story follows the journey of a wild boy called Mowgli, who grew up among wolves without any human contact.
While the friendship with Baloo, the Bear, and facing off against the tiger Shere Khan were fictionalised, the tale of a feral boy walking on all fours and under the care of wild beasts was not.
In Jungle Book, Mowgli eventually finds a human village and makes the decision to return to his own people. And while the real Mowgli did make his way back to civilisation, it was not quite the same happy ending.
This is the story of the real-life Mowgli. The story of Dina Sanichar.
In February 1867, a group of hunters were scouring the hills of Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh in search of prey. They came to a cave and what they found shocked them. It was not a small deer they saw, but a small boy, and he was surrounded by what looked like a pack of wolves.
He was only around six years old and was sleeping amongst the wolves as though he really were a man-cub. The hunters, concerned for the boy’s safety, decided to carry him…
