Mowgli is a fictional character and the protagonist of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book stories. He is a feral boy from the Pench area in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, India, who originally appeared in Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" and then became the most prominent character in the collections The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book (1894–1895), which also featured stories about other characters.
The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. The stories are set in a forest in India; one place mentioned repeatedly is "Seeonee" (Seoni), in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
Amitav Ghosh is an Indian writer. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India's highest literary honor. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and South Asia. He has written historical fiction and also written non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change.
Sundarbans is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. Sundarban Reserve Forest (SRF) of Bangladesh is the largest mangrove forest in the world. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal. It comprises closed and open mangrove forests, land used for agricultural purpose, mudflats and barren land, and is intersected by multiple tidal streams and channels. Sundarbans is home to the world's largest area of mangrove forests. Four protected areas in the Sundarbans are enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, viz. Sundarbans West (Bangladesh), Sundarbans South (Bangladesh), Sundarbans East (Bangladesh) and Sundarbans National Park (India).
Man-Eaters of Kumaon is a 1944 book written by hunter-naturalist Jim Corbett. It details the experiences that Corbett had in the Kumaon region of India from the 1900s to the 1930s, while hunting man-eating Bengal tigers and Indian leopards. One tiger, for example, was responsible for over 400 human deaths. Man-Eaters of Kumaon is the best known of Corbett's books, and contains 10 stories of tracking and shooting man-eaters in the Indian Himalayas during the early years of the twentieth century. The text also contains incidental information on flora, fauna and village life. Seven of the stories were first published privately as Jungle Stories.
The Hungry Tide (2004) is the fourth novel by Indian-born author, Amitav Ghosh. Set in the Sundarbans, it follows an unlikely trio who travel up river together to find the rare Irrawaddy dolphin. It won the 2004 Hutch Crossword Book Award for Fiction.
The Shadow Lines (1988) is a Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novel by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh. It is a book that captures perspective of time and events, of lines that bring people together and hold them apart; lines that are clearly visible from one perspective and nonexistent from another; lines that exist in the memory of one, and therefore in another's imagination. A narrative built out of an intricate, constantly crisscrossing web of memories of many people, it never pretends to tell a story. Instead, it invites the reader to invent one, out of the memories of those involved, memories that hold mirrors of differing shades to the same experience.
Gosaba is a village and a gram panchayat within the jurisdiction of the Gosaba police station in the Gosaba CD block in the Canning subdivision of the South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal.
Tiger attacks in the Sundarbans, in India and Bangladesh are estimated to kill from 0-50 people per year. The Sundarbans is home to over 100 Bengal tigers, one of the largest single populations of tigers in one area. Before modern times, Sundarbans tigers were said to "regularly kill fifty or sixty people a year".
Bonbibi, the lady of the forest, is a guardian spirit of the forests venerated by both the Hindu and the Muslim residents of the Sundarbans. She is called upon mostly by the honey-collectors and the woodcutters before entering the forest for protection against the attacks from the tigers. It is believed that the demon king, Dakkhin Rai, an arch-enemy of Banbibi actually appears in the disguise of a tiger and attacks human beings.
In an Antique Land is a 1992 book written in first-person by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh recounting his experiences in two Egyptian villages attempting to retrace accounts of an unknown Indian slave, as well as a reconstruction of the life of a 12th-century Jewish merchant in the area. It describes a variety of characters, going into great detail regarding their lives and Ghosh's interactions with them.
Dakshin Rai is a revered deity in the Sundarbans in India and Bangladesh who rules over beasts and demons. He is regarded as the overall ruler of the Sundarbans. The God is worshipped by all those who enter the Sundarban forests of West Bengal, for subsistence, irrespective of their caste, creed or religion.
The Ibis trilogy is a work of historical fiction by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh, consisting of the novels Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015). A work of postcolonial literature, the story is set across the Indian Ocean region during the 1830s in the lead-up to the First Opium War. It particularly focuses on the trade of opium between India and China and the trafficking of girmityas to Mauritius. The series has received critical acclaim and academic attention for its historical research, themes and ambition. A television series adaptation was announced to be in development in 2019.
Flood of Fire is a 2015 novel by Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh. Following the Sea of Poppies (2008) and River of Smoke (2011), the novel is the final installment of the Ibis trilogy, which concerns the 19th-century opium trade between India and China. The book was first published by the English publisher John Murray, and later by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the United States. The novel was shortlisted for The Hindu Literary Prize and received the Crossword Book Jury Award in Fiction in 2015.
Ali Aziz Sethi is a Pakistani singer, songwriter, composer, and author. Born to journalists and politicians Najam Sethi and Jugnu Mohsin, Sethi rose to prominence with his debut novel, The Wish Maker (2009). Although Sethi received some musical training as a child, he did not begin to formally train in Hindustani classical music until after graduating from college. He trained under the tutelage of Ustad Naseeruddin Saami as well as under noted ghazal and classical singer Farida Khanum.
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable is a 2016 non-fiction book by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh discussing climate change. In it, Ghosh discusses the cultural depictions, history and politics of climate change, and its relationship to colonialism.
The Sundarbans settlements refer to the areas of the Sundarbans that were cleared of forests for human habitation in the present North 24 Paganas and the South 24 Parganas districts in the Indian state of West Bengal.
Wade is an Indian 2D animated short film written and directed by Upamanyu Bhattacharyya and Kalp Sanghvi. It follows a group of climate change refugees in Kolkata, India, as they are attacked by an ambush of Royal Bengal Tigers. It imagines futures around sea level rise, global warming, ecological disruption and mass migration.
Salman Toor is a Pakistani-born American painter. His works depict the imagined lives of young men of South Asian-birth, displayed in close range in either South Asia and New York City fantasized settings. Toor lives and works in New York City.
The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis is a 2021 non-fiction book by Amitav Ghosh. It discusses colonialism and environmental issues with particular focus on the Banda Islands. It is Ghosh's second non-fiction work to discuss climate change, after The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016).
