100 YEARS OLD AND STILL JUGGLING HIS JUNGLES...

THE text today is a passage from the first chapter of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and as you will see, it is a passage that has given me great philosophical and geographical dilemmas:

“Bagheera would lie out on a branch and call, “Come along, Little Brother,” and at first Mowgli would cling like the sloth but afterward he would fling himself through the branches almost as boldly as the gray ape.”

It is that phrase “like the sloth” that is giving me much cause to ponder. Sloths, I agree, are very good at clinging to trees but sloths live in Central and South America and Mowgli’s adventures are set in the Indian jungle. How did Mowgli or Bagheera know about sloths?

The conversation between them must have gone something like this:

“You are clinging to that tree like a sloth, Little Brother,” said Bagheera. “You must learn to swing through the branches like an ape.”

“What’s a sloth?” asked Mowgli, making sure not to loosen his grip.

Bagheera pondered the question for a while, then said, “Search me, Little Brother, for I have never seen a sloth. Yet I am sure they cling.”

“From where I stand,” said Mowgli, not standing at all but still clinging to a branch, “that seems a very sensible thing to do. Sloths must be very wise creatures, if they exist at all, that is.”

“They must exist,” said Bagheera, “or I would never have been able to speak of them.”

“Oh don’t come all pre-Socratic with me,” said Mowgli. “You’re just repeating what the Greek philosopher Parmenides said and all I have to say about that is ‘unicorns’. What about them then?”

“Unicorns cannot cling to branches,” Bagheera said firmly. “I know that for a fact. So unicorns aren’t sloths. Unicorns don’t exist, therefore sloths do. I rest my case.”

“That’s epistemological nonsense,” Mowgli said. “Anyway, it doesn’t explain how you, an Indian jungle animal, know anything about sloths which are two continents away, if you travel westwards. Do you think you might have heard something about them from that Kipling fellow?”

At that moment, Baloo the bear happened to amble past. “Hi, Mowgli!” he greeted the boy cub. “Hi Baggy,” he said to the panther.

“Baloo,” said the panther, “do you know anything about sloths?”

“Not necessarily,” said Baloo, “and if it’s not necessary, it can’t be a bear necessity, so I don’t know it,” and he started to rub his back against the tree because it was itching dreadfully.

“Oy!” shouted Mowgli, “Watch what you’re doing. I’m clinging to this tree and all your rubbing is vibrating the tree and shaking it and making me…”

And that is when he fell off the tree and in desperation started to swing from branch to branch in the manner of a gray ape.

“Yippee!” shouted Bagheera. “I knew you could do it.

And that, my Best Beloved, is how the boy child learnt to swing like an ape. And Rudyard Kipling never mentioned sloths ever again.