Two Mowglis
Content Warning: Death
Raksha, the she-wolf, in Jungle Book encounters a human baby who has just learned to walk. He toddles into her cave. Father Wolf lifts the baby and brings him closer to Raksha. The baby boldly pushes aside her cubs to take his place at her side. She regards him with deep affection and pride, and names him Mowgli.
On the eve of my birthday each year, I call my mother. Tell me the story of how I was born, I ask. She’s ten hours away, on another continent. Mom describes her discomfort and the lack of painkillers, her upright position in the hospital chair with stirrups. I emerge with a crooked head and stare at her with beady black eyes, like a wrinkled grandmother. She experiences a tremendous surge of protectiveness. She is very young, and I am her first-born, a daughter. It would be better if I were a son but there will be more children. I am perfect for right now and there are no second thoughts. She vows to love me in ways that she was not.
How do you raise a human? Raksha doesn’t know, but she raises Mowgli as her own, along with her cubs. He learns about the forest and the laws of the jungle from his wolf-brothers, from Bagheera the panther and from Baloo the Bear.
I call my mother. She is cleaning out my grandparents’ home. They have passed away, and the house in Kolkata remains untouched. It’s time to move forward. What are you doing with grandfather’s books, I ask? A whole floor with a library - a dusty, secret place with case after case of books shrouded in glass cases. They are getting thrown out, she says, her tone flat.
Lal kothi, the red house where a spiral cast-iron staircase winds itself around the back. My parents leave my sister and I with my grandparents one summer to travel to Europe. It is my seventh birthday, and I can’t wait to open the gift that mom has left for me. I steal away with the wrapped package to the spiral staircase. It is a stack of hardbound books by Enid Blyton with titles like “The Naughtiest Girl” and “The Magic Faraway Tree.” My grandfather doesn’t approve of fiction or story books and my grandmother has little patience for children, so I hide on the stairs and devour the books one by one over the long summer days.
Eventually Mowgli learns that he is not a wolf and leaves the pack to go in search of the man village to bring the knowledge of the Red Flower back to the wolves. He plans to fight Shere Khan, the man-eating tiger. Come back soon, Father Wolf and Raksha tell him. We are getting old. When he returns, he discovers that he doesn’t belong anywhere, that he’s two Mowglis, wolf and man.
We have just reached the top of the pyramid. The air is hot and sticky, but the light is magical, soft and golden at dusk. We are surrounded by thick jungle. My mother and I have been up since dawn hiking through the ancient temple complex at Tikal. I have just finished two years at my first job after college. It is our first time traveling together, alone.
Above the cover of the forest, the temples rise around us, their tops crowned by sleeping gods. A pair of toucans take flight, and our breath stops in mid-air. In that moment, we are the same person or perhaps two disparate halves of an imperfect whole. My mother has intensely wished for some things for me that she lacks: let her grow tall, she will have enough education to earn a living, she should never depend on a man, she will always know that her parents love her unconditionally, she will not be unduly criticized. I am thrust forward, propelled by the intensity of her wishes. I will straddle two worlds, maybe more.
Later, my small son will ask, why do we live here in America, when everyone we love lives so far away.
