There is a startling piece of transformative stagecraft towards the start of Sarah Punshon’s production of the Rudyard Kipling favourite. The animals have discovered the infant Mowgli, a “little frog” adrift in a wicker basket on a floral silk river. One of the jollier songs of Ziad Jabero’s score strikes up, a catchy number called Jungle Jive. As it progresses, the boy emerges, first as a toddler puppet on one side of the in-the-round space,...

A colleague of John Lockwood Kipling, professor at Sir JJ School of Art, and father of Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling had famously described the little boy as a “menace” during his recollections of the little boy. Born on campus on this day in 1865, he spent a few years of his early childhood on the campus while his illustrious father carried on imparting lectures in art studies on campus. Kipling senior, along with colleagues like John...

How a nightmarish film trailer made Rudyard Kipling a Gen Z hero

Samantha Ruth Prabhu shared a poem on her Instagram feed, stating that it helped her thrive during the toughest times in her life. The actress quoted a few lines from Rudyard Kipling’s most acclaimed poem, If. As soon as she posted the note on her social media handle, actor Arjun Kapoor reacted, mentioning that he had a similar experience.