Bagheera Bagheera Bagheera (; "Baghīrā"/"Bagīdah") is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in the "Jungle Book" (coll. 1894) and the "Second Jungle Book" (coll. 1895). He is a black panther (melanistic Indian leopard) who serves as friend, protector and mentor to the "man-cub" Mowgli. The word "bagheera" is Hindi/Urdu for black panther-- although the root word bagh means tiger. Born in captivity in the menagerie of the Raja of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, Bagheera begins to plan for his freedom after his mother dies. Once he is mature and strong enough, he breaks the lock on his cage and escapes
Bagheera Walt Disney never Kippled either. Hardly a line is left of the stories about Mowgli, the Indian "man-cub" who was raised by animals. Like Disney's other adaptations of children's classics, The Jungle Book is based on the Kipling original in the same way that a fox hunt is based on foxes. Nonetheless, the result is thoroughly delightful.” The above review is from an April 15, 2016 Time Magazine Review of The Jungle Book 1967 (http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,841219,00.html). The portrayal of Bagheera as well as Ben Kingsley's voice acting were praised in the 2016 film. Rotten Tomatoes top critic James Berardinelli stated: "Ben