When an author writes a novel that finds inspiration by real places, there is certainly some truth to the fiction. But Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is nothing short of an extraordinary mystery when it comes to whether Mowgli was a real person. 

The Story Behind Jungle Book

Tucked away in the small district of Seoni in Madhya Pradesh, today the jungles are taken over by human habitat. However, Kipling’s Jungle Book is an influence of the then dense forests of the Seoni Region. It is said that when the novel was written, the Seoni Region was a part of the Humongous and vastly spread Forests of Madhya Pradesh include the Kanha and Pench National Parks. But even today Seoni holds closely in its heart, the legend of Mowgli. 

While you may have the locals giving you various versions of the story, Kipling drew inspiration from actual research reports and papers of Sir William Henry Sleeman. The paper mentions the discovery of a Wolf-Boy Raised by Wolves in the year 1831 near Seoni. The boy was called or named as ‘Seeall’. 

Real or Fiction?

But how do we believe a true story from about a century-old report? With very little evidence left to it in today’s Seoni, stories are not just about the event but also how and where it unfolds. Many curious researchers and experts tried to find some evidence for this fictional novel. While the village of seoni celebrates the legend of Mowgli by conducting the annual Mowgli festival and having art that depicts Mowgli, the Caves in the Village of Kanhiwada have a different story to tell.

The Kanhiwada Village in the Novel, is about 3kms from there, the village of Chhui mentions a place called Amodagadh- ‘the Karmasthali of Wolf-Child Mowgli’. The barely-there trail route takes you 12kms to get to the cave where Mowgli and the wolves seemed to live. It is eminent that the wolf boy seeall came in light in this very cave in 1831. The surrounding nothingness and abandoned forests terrain resemble the description of the wolf pack’s rock mentioned in the novel.

The Forest of Kanha

However, this is not all that there is to the famous novel. The novel also mentions and takes inspiration from the forest of Kanha that today stands as a National Park. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the shers of seoni was an inspiration for the character ‘Shere Khan’ that are in endangerment today. Thus they are protection at the Pench National Park. If you plan on exploring Seoni for the Jungle Book puzzle, the mystery would be unsolved and incomplete if you don’t visit Kanha and Pench National Parks.

Mowgli: The Legend

The village of Amodagadh furthermore has access to another cave where Mowgli is said to have lived. Today the Cave is inhabited by a godman called Batekhari Baba. This cave has several graffiti on the stone walls inside. In fact, the baba has been living in the cave since 1977. When asked about the Mowgli legend being true or false, baba firmly says and believes- ‘there was never a Mowgli and it is all but fiction’.

It is all but a coincidence that as I write about the legend of Mowgli. I pass through the very mysterious and legendary district of Seoni. By the look of it, Seoni may not be the Jungle it was a century ago, but the dense lush greenery around and mysterious mountains and trees have a lot to say about the Jungle Book. In my opinion, there is some truth, if not a lot in this fictional novel and real town.

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