The Jungle Book Story

My all-time favouritest film, and one that's my earliest memory of watching anything on TV is Walt Disney's Jungle Book. Man, I grew up watching it. My cousin brother and I'd watch it every single day, I think even before we began school. When my sister was born and we moved to Andheri, we took the precious video tape with us. And then I'd watch it after school, with my baby sister.



We knew the songs by heart. I'd laugh every time I saw it. And of course, cry at the sad parts. Then, as time passed and school took up more time and going downstairs to play with the boys gradually became more important, that old video tape stayed gathering dust (and fungus on the film.) We had to eventually throw it away when the VCR was replaced with a VCD player.

Many years later, around 3 years ago, I had a severe heartache in memory of the film. The songs would play in my head and mom would keep narrating bits from the film to remind us of the days when we'd spend every holiday watching it. I decided I had to see it again soon.

It took a while to find, but when I eventually got my hands on a pirated DVD near Fort, I was super-thrilled. The family gathered together that evening and saw the film once again, after years. I was amazed by how much I remembered. And by how fantastic, engaging and brilliant the script, the characters, and dialogues were. Are.

I saw it again, the next day, with subtitles on. And the tiny little subtle jokes that were otherwise missed were discovered for the first time and once again I enjoyed every second of the film.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, you must. It's 40 years old (1967), but I promise anyone of any age will love the film.

Recently, I saw the making of the film on Discovery Channel. It was funny how the film grew, out of a book, into rough sketches, and then slowly the characters took on characteristics of the Voices of the characters. Baloo the bear, for example, looks like Phil Harris, who 'lent' his voice for Baloo.

Kaa, Baloo, Bagheera, Mowgli, Sher Khan, King Louis, the elephants, the vultures - each of the characters are hilarious and so well developed. Well, I could go on and on about the film and I was reminded about it right now cos I just heard a couple of songs off the soundtrack. Ah, did I mention the excellent soundtrack?