Bagheera worried about what his child will find around the next corner, the big cat who knows he has to let go just a little but can't find it in himself to do so". 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 Jungle Book as both noble savage and embryo good citizen, to see that the "Jungle Books" .. give their readers a vicarious experience of adventure both as freedom and as service to a just State". Sayan Mukherjee, writing for the Book Review Circle, calls "The Jungle Book" "One of the most enjoyable books of my childhood and even in adulthood, highly informative as to the outlook of the British on their 'native population'." The academic Jopi Nyman argued in 2001 that the book formed part of the construction of "colonial English national identity" within Kipling's "imperial project". In Nyman's view, nation, race