an active audience guide — the garden of rikki tikki tavi

The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi

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By Y York

Synopsis .....................................................................................................................................................State Learning Standards ...................................................................................................................Rudyard Kipling Public Success, Private Sorrow ..................................................................A Chat with Deb Trout, Costume Designer .................................................................................About the Set ...........................................................................................................................................About the Costumes ..............................................................................................................................Rikki Reinterpreted Y Yorks Take on Kiplings Classic ...........................................................A Few Things about India .................................................................................................................The Animals in the Garden ................................................................................................................Fabulous Animals ..................................................................................................................................The Brahmani and the Mongoose A Story from Ancient India ......................................Yes, You Can .............................................................................................................................................Words & Phrases That Might Be New to You .............................................................................Jump Start Give This a Try ..............................................................................................................Drama in Action Learn by Doing .................................................................................................Activity Pages ..........................................................................................................................................Booklist ......................................................................................................................................................Share Your Thoughts ............................................................................................................................

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Presents

Table of Contents

SYNOPSIS

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Continued on the next page...

Be warned: This is a complete synopsis of the play, so it is full of spoilers.

On a bright sunny day in India, Darzee the tailorbird enjoys the garden home she is proud to call all her own. Alarmed by snoring, she awakens a young mongoose who, startled, cries out rikki tikki, rikki tikki. After Darzee calms her down, the mongoose introduces herself as Rikki Tikki Tavi. Rikki cannot quite explain her arrival. She remembers, Dark, wet, whoosh, cant see, floating and floating, land here, sleep, wake up. She knows she is lost and misses her cozy burrow, but she is delighted to find a best friend in Darzee. Darzee does not want to be friends with Rikki and tries to convince Rikki to leave. But Rikki has learned from her mother that every mongoose needs a garden to make perfect. She has found hers!

Darzee tries to make the garden seem unappealing, but Rikki loves it. Darzee warns her of Nag the cobra who sometimes comes to the garden. Rikki says she loves cobrain her mothers dinner casseroles. But Rikki has never seen a live cobra and she is terrified by Darzees description. Then Teddy, the child of the human family who owns the garden, comes in whistling. Rikki thinks he is the cobra and cowers as Teddy pets her. Darzee calls Teddy her pet and

explains she has trained the child to come into the garden to feed her. Trying to corner all the food and scare Rikki away, she claims that Teddys bread crumbs will poison Rikki and Teddys petting will kill her. However, Rikki cannot resist the candy Teddy offers. Rikki and Teddy leave to continue what each believes is training the other.

Chuchu the muskrat then pokes in hoping to eat the leftover crumbs. Darzee claims that all Teddys crumbs went to the new mongoose. She convinces Chuchu they need a plan to get rid of Rikki. Chuchu suggests they scare her away with a cobraChuchu has the old skin that Nag recently shed. He sometimes puts it on and hisses because he wants to be scary, even though wearing it scares Chuchu so much that he has to close his eyes. He offers to dress up in the skin to frighten Rikki away. Amazed that Chuchu has a good idea, Darzee approves and Chuchu leaves to get disguised.

Meanwhile Nag comes hissing into the garden. Darzee thinks it is just Chuchu pretending to be the cobra. Darzee grows alarmed when Nag talks of eating birds and everyone else, including Teddy. Chuchu comes back, and Darzee realizes her mistake. Just as Nag prepares to strike them, Rikki returns. Seeing the cobra, she emits her battle cry of rikki tikki, rikki tikki. Nag, knowing that a mongoose can kill cobras, slithers away.

Darzee and Chuchu, now understanding Rikkis value to the garden and to themselves, beg her to stay and protect them. But Rikki, who has had no training in how to fight a cobra, is determined

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to leaveuntil Darzee says Nag threatened to kill Teddy! Rikki resolves to stay until she has made the garden safe for the pet. She decides to learn how to kill Nag on her own. Darzee suggests she practice on Chuchu dressed in Nags old skin.

While they leave to get the skin, Nag enters the garden to look for a place to hide his precious nest of eggs. Although he accidentally drops one egg, and then eats it, he finds a safe place in the bushes, hides the rest and leaves.

Rikki, Chuchu and Darzee come back with Nags skin to practice killing a cobra. They are very hungry and look around for crumbs from Teddy that might be scattered among the bushes. Darzee finds Nags egg nest. Rikki and Chuchu are overjoyedeggs, their favorite food! Believing them to be bird eggs, Darzee describes all the love and attention birds put into caring for their

young. She makes Rikki and Chuchu promise to never eat a bird egg.

Darzee is surprised when Chuchu and Rikki reveal that this nest is on the ground. Examining them closely, they realize these eggs come not from a bird but from a snake! Rikki and Chuchu gobble them down.

Leaving one egg uneaten, they push the nest back under the bushes.

Chuchu puts on the cobra skin to help Rikki practice, but scares himself so badly that he has to take it off. Rikki asks to put it on and Darzee sews it on tight. Teddy comes with food but thinks Rikki is Nag and runs away, frightened. Rikki tries to keep Chuchu from eating the crumbs Teddy dropped as he fled, believing they are poison to all animals except birds. After Chuchu reveals the truth, Rikki realizes that Darzee was lying to her about them being poisoned. Then Nag arrives. He mistakes the disguised Rikki for another cobra. He hypnotizes Darzee and offers her to Rikki as a meal. He also offers to share the garden with Rikki if she will help him kill a certain young mongoose. Rikkis reluctance to eat Darzee and awkwardness in performing the cobra dance arouse Nags suspicions. Nag recognizes his stolen skin and Rikki takes it off, revealing herself as the young mongoose. Rikki emits her battle cry, but instead of retreating, Nag readies to strike. It looks like Rikki was rightshes too young to defeat a cobra. Then Chuchu surprises Darzee with another good idea. Taking Nags last remaining egg from the nest, Chuchu threatens to destroy it unless Nag swears to leave the garden and the island forever. Nag agrees and slithers away with his solitary egg.

Rikki and Chuchu congratulate each other on making the garden safe from Nag. Remembering how often Darzee has cheated her, Rikki is ready to look for another home. But Darzee wants her to stay. She swears not to fool Rikki anymore and to share everything, even her nest, with Rikki. Rikki happily agrees to stay with her two friends.

The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi touches on many themes and ideas. Here are a few we believe would make good Discussion Topics: Trust, Honesty, Sharing and Exotic Animals.

We believe that seeing the show and using our Active Audience Guide can help you meet the following State Standards and address these 21st-Century Skills:

Growth Mindset (belief that your intelligence and ability can increase with effort) Perseverance Creative Thinking Critical Thinking Communication Collaboration

Washington State K-12 Learning Standards

Theatre 1. The student understands and applies arts knowledge and skills.

1.1 Understands arts concepts and vocabulary.1.4 Understands and applies audience conventions in a variety of settings and performances of theatre.

3. Theatre: The student communicates through the arts (dance, music, theatre, and visual arts). 3.1 Uses theatre to express feelings and present ideas. 3.2 Uses theatre to communicate for a specific purpose.

4. The student makes connections with and across the arts to other disciplines, life, cultures, and work.4.4 Understands that the arts shape and reflect culture and history.4.5 Demonstrates the knowledge of arts careers and the knowledge of arts skills in the world of work.

Reading: Literature

Common Core State Standards in English Language ArtsExact standards depend upon grade level, selected text(s), and instructional shifts to meet the standard.CCSS.ELA - RL.1 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. CCSS.ELA - RL.2 Retell familiar stories, including key details. CCSS.ELA - RL.3 Identify characters, settings and major events in the story. CCSS.ELA - RL.4 Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text. CCSS.ELA - RL.6 Name the author and illustrator of a story and define the roles of each. CCSS.ELA - RL.9 Compare and contrast the adventures of characters in a story. CCSS.ELA - RL.10 Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.

Reading: Informational Text

CCSS.ELA - RI.1 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. CCSS.ELA - RI.2 Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text. CCSS.ELA - RI.9 Identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts.

WritingCCSS.ELA - W.1 Compose a piece in which they tell a reader the topic and state an opinion.CCSS.ELA - W.2 Compose informative/explanatory text.CCSS.ELA - W.3 Tell about events in the order in which they occurred and provide a reaction. CCSS.ELA - W.3 Recall information from experiences or gather information to answer a question.

Speaking & Listening

CCSS.ELA - SL.2 Ask and answer questions about key details.CCSS.ELA - SL.3 Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify. CCSS.ELA - SL.5 Add visual displays to descriptions as described to provide additional details. CCSS.ELA - SL.6 Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings and ideas clearly.

WASHINGTON STATE LEARNING STANDARDS

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WHAT IS ARTS INTEGRATION?A definition and checklist from The Kennedy Centers Changing Education Through the Arts program.

Arts integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both.

Some educators confuse any effort to include the arts in their classroom with arts integration. While all types of arts-based instruction are encouraged, it is helpful for educators to know when they are engaged in arts integration. To achieve this awareness, an Arts Integration Checklist is provided. Educators answering yes to the items in the Checklist can be assured that their approach to teaching is indeed integrated.

Approach to Teaching Are learning principles of Constructivism (actively built, experiential, evolving,

collaborative, problem-solving, and reflective) evident in my lesson?Understanding

Are the students engaged in constructing and demonstrating understanding as opposed to just memorizing and reciting knowledge?

Art Form Are the students constructing and demonstrating their understandings through an art form?

Creative Process Are the students engaged in a process of creating something original as opposed to

copying or parroting? Will the students revise their products?

Connects Does the art form connect to another part of the curriculum or a concern/need? Is the connection mutually reinforcing?

Evolving Objectives Are there objectives in both the art form and another part of the curriculum or a concern/need? Have the objectives evolved since the last time the students engaged with this subject matter?

For more thoughts about this subject and a wealth of useful information(including lesson plans) go to:http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/educators.aspx

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Are there objectives in both the art form and another part of the curriculum or a concern/need?Have the objectives evolved since the last time the students engaged with this subject matter?

For more thoughts about this subject and a wealth of useful information

RUDYARD KIPLING: PUBLIC SUCCESS, PRIVATE SORROW

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Joseph Rudyard Kipling, one of the great English authors, was born on December 30, 1865, in Bombay (now called Mumbai), India. At the time of his birth, his parents, John and Alice, were recent arrivals in India. They had come, like many English people, to start new lives and help the British government run the subcontinent.

For Kipling, Bombay was a wondrous place. Along with his younger sister he reveled in exploring the local markets with his nanny. He learned the language and fell in love with the country and its culture. However, Kiplings mother wanted her son to receive a formal British education so he was sent to Southsea, England at the age of six.

The next five years were hard for Kipling. In England, he lived with a foster family, the Holloways. Mrs. Holloway was a brutal woman. She beat and bullied Kipling, who also struggled to fit in at school. Kiplings comfort came from books and stories. He devoted himself to reading. When Mrs. Holloway took away his books, Kipling snuck them back and pretended to play in his room by moving furniture along the floor while he read.

By the age of 11, Kipling was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A visitor to his foster home saw his condition and contacted his mother, who rushed back to England and rescued him from the Holloways. She took her son on an extended vacation and then placed him in a new school in Devon. There Kipling

thrived and discovered his talent for writing, eventually becoming editor of the school newspaper.

In 1882, Kiplings parents brought him back to India where he worked at a local newspaper. The sights and sounds, even the language, which hed believed hed forgotten, rushed back to him upon his arrival. Kiplings experiences during this time formed the backbone for a series of stories he began to write and publish. Assembled into a collection of 40 short stories called Plain Tales from the Hills, they gained wide popularity in England.

Seven years after he had left England, Kipling returned to its shores in hopes of greater literary success. In London he met Wolcott Balestier, an American agent and publisher who quickly became one of Kiplings

great friends and supporters. As Kiplings literary star rose, he got to know Balestiers family, in particular his sister, Carrie. During the Christmas holiday in 1891, Kipling, who had traveled back to India to see his family, received an urgent cable from Carrie. Wolcott had died suddenly of typhoid fever and Carrie needed Kipling to be with her. Kipling rushed back to England and within eight days of his return they were married.

The Kiplings set off on an adventurous honeymoon that took them to Canada and then on to Japan. But during the Japanese leg of the journey, Kipling learned

Young Rudyard, (date unknown)

25 year old Rudyard with his father John Lockwood Kipling

Kipling in 1910

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that his bank had failed. The Kiplings were broke. The young couple decided to settle in Brattleboro, Vermont, where much of Carries family resided. Kipling adored his new life. The Kiplings welcomed their first child, a daughter named Josephine (born in 1893), and a second daughter, Elsie (born in 1896).

As a writer, too, Kipling flourished. His work during this time included The Jungle Book (1894). Kipling was delighted to be around children and his tales enchanted boys and girls all over the English-speaking world. By the age of 32, Kipling was the highest-paid writer in the world.

But then Kipling had a major falling out with Carries brother. Newspapers across America broadcast the spat on their front pages. Embarrassed by the attention, he and his family left Vermont for a new life back in England. There, in 1897, they had a son, John.

In the winter of 1899, Carrie, who was homesick, decided to take the whole family back to New York to see her mother. But the journey across the Atlantic was brutal. Both Kipling and his daughter Josephine arrived in the States gravely ill with pneumonia. For days, the world kept careful watch on the state of Kiplings health as newspapers reported on his condition. Kipling did recover, but his beloved Josephine did not. He vowed never to return to America.

In 1902, the Kiplings bought a large estate in Sussex, England. It offered the kind of isolation they now cherished. Here Kipling found some of the happiness he thought he had lost forever. He was as dedicated as ever to his writing. The same year, Kipling published his Just So Stories, which were greeted with wide acclaim. The book itself was in part a tribute to his late daughter, for whom Kipling had originally crafted the stories as he put her to bed. The books name had in fact come from Josephine, who told her father he had to repeat each tale as he always had, or just so. Kipling won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.

During World War I, Kipling strongly supported the war effort. He encouraged his son John to join the army. In October of 1915, the Kiplings received word that John had gone missing in France. The news devastated the couple. Kipling, perhaps feeling guilty about his push to make his son a soldier, set off for France to find John. But nothing ever came of the search, and Johns body was never recovered.

Kipling continued to write during the last two decades of his life, but he never again returned to the childrens tales he had once delighted in crafting. His health declined and he died of a perforated ulcer in 1936. Kiplings ashes are buried in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey, next to the graves of Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens.

Excerpted and adapted from: Biography.com http://www.biography.com/people/rudyard-kipling-9365581

A first edition of The Jungle Book with Kiplings handwritten inscription to his daughter

Josephine was found in 2010.

Rudyard Kipling and his wife Carrie in a carriage on their way to meet the King and Queen at

Buckingham Palace

From left to right, Elsie, John and Josephine Kipling

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A CHAT WITH DEB TROUT, COSTUME DESIGNER


Please tell us a little bit about your working process.

A costume designer helps make the world of the play come alive visually. I begin by reading the play and looking at all sorts of art work, fashion and costume imagery. A designer needs to figure out if the play exists mostly in a funny world or a serious world and if the world is realistic or artificial (fantasy or cartoon, for example). I also explore who each character is, with the goal of making outfits that help define the characters and allow the actors to transform into their characters. After Ive looked at lots of imagery, I start to doodle and draw ideas, and as I do this I like to add color and textures to the mix. Then the fun really begins! Everybody starts to play together: the director, other designers, actors and artisans who

know how to make the most amazing things! Three of my favorite parts of costume design are the fabric shopping (all that color, pattern and movement!), the costume fittings with the actors (they are so fun and bring my work to life), and dress rehearsals where we get to see it all come together (sometimes we do a lot of tweaking in those last days to make it all work). My job is really fun because I get to play and learn on every show.

What is a particularly interesting or unusual challenge on this project and how are you setting out to solve it?

In The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi most of the characters are animals. How do we use the qualities of the real animals to create the costume designs without making them look like stuffed toy animals? They need to be recognizable as animals but the way they behave and interact with each other is very human. Finding the blend of those two worlds is an exciting task.

A sketch of Darzees costume. Do you see how the shape, color and fabric choices make the actor resemble a bird?

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I started with research on the animals to learn about their fur, feather or skin color, body shapes and the way they move. Then I studied the characters to see how the way they act would say something about the way they should be dressed. For example, Darzee is a diva of a bird. She rules over the garden. And since shes a tailorbird, she sews, so she is probably proud of her clothes and they could be pretty fancy. Using the colors of the tailorbirdbright green, yellow and rustI designed a costume that gives the actors upper body a shape like full, fluffy feathers, with her legs sticking out below likewell, like bird legs.

What in your childhood got you to where you are today?

As a child I liked to draw, paint, play with clay, and of course, my mother taught me how to sew. My parents encouraged me to learn about art, but it was in high school that I really caught the theater bug. My school had wonderful art programs and an exceptional theater program. It was there that I learned how fun it was to paint and build scenery, and often came home covered in paint and glue, as well as ink and clay from my art classes. I remember once after painting backdrops for Guys and Dolls all weekend, I washed my hair in the bath, and the water turned purple! I practice better safety today, but that was pretty cool It wasnt until I was in college that I understood I could make theater my life career. My costume professor encouraged me to design costumes for a production of The Good Woman of Szechuan and I realized I loved fabric, trims and the people I was working with. I enjoyed acting in plays, but it was really design where I flourished. The world of theater lets me draw and paint, be part of storytelling, and (most wonderful!) allows me to work as a team with many, many, fun, smart people.

I began my professional theater career by working as a stitcher in a costume shop, then as a crafts artisan making stage armor and jewelry, then as a theater milliner (hat maker). Next I began assisting designers on many shows and after many years I finally became a full-fledged costume designer.

Deb Trout designs costumes for theater, opera, musicals, performance art and children, here in the Northwest and around the nation. She has been working in the costume business for over 35 years, teaches design at the University of Washington and is a member of the United Scenic Artists Union.

Fabrics for Darzees costume

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ABOUT THE SETFrom Jeffrey Cook, Set Designer

A world of excitement and adventure spiced with a bit of danger awaits the young mongoose Rikki Tikki Tavi in a beautiful East Indian garden full of fantastic plants. India has a warm and tropical climate, so many wonderful things grow there that will not grow in the Pacific Northwest. The director and I both love to spend time outside in our gardens, and we had fun

choosing what kinds of things to put into this design to make it look like a garden you had never seen before.

Because gardens are natural flowing spaces, I wanted to soften the architecture of the Eve Alvord Theatre which has flat walls and square corners. Trees at the front corners of the stage hide its straight edges, and curved walls covered with plants and flowers create the garden beds. There are leaves and vines overhead to make the garden seem taller and fuller. The action of the play is surrounded by the garden on all sides.

This groundplan of the set shows the curved walls that create the graceful lines of a garden.

Photograph of the set model

Some of the interesting flowers and plants that are sources for the design

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The plants in our garden are based on plants in the real world, but we made them more fantastic by using colors and patterns borrowed from Indian clothing. A lot of traditional Indian clothing has bright, bold patterns that resemble flowers and leaves. Like all good gardens, this one contains a variety of textures, colors, shapes and movement. The plants in this garden are also larger than life-size so they look the way a small animal might see them.

SCT prop manager Fried standing in front of gigantic fake flowers purchased to use on the set

Antique drawing of a tailorbird nest

A portion of the set model used to experiment with the shape and

position of Darzees nest

Drafting for one of the garden walls showing its dimensions

Paint elevation of that same wall. This will be given to the painters to use as a guide.

The story requires that there be some places on the stage where the animals can run around and be active, and other places where they can hide and be safe or rest. This garden is shared by several different kinds of animals, including a human child, and each needs a safe place. Color and shape of plants help define those spaces. Youll notice that one corner of the set is darker and a bit more mysterious than the rest. Thats a good place for the cobra, Nag, to set his nest. Darzee, the tailorbird, believes this garden is all hers and she needs a place to keep watch over her home. Real tailorbirds make unusual nests by stitching one large leaf or several leaves together into a cone shape. We had to figure out how to make a cone-shaped nest for Darzee that the actor could easily climb into, which still looks like a safe place above the ground. Our tailorbird nest is like a comfy chair that hangs from the branches of a banyan treejust right for Darzee.

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ABOUT THE COSTUMES


From Deb Trout, Costume Designer

For The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi, I had to learn about animals and birds that were new to me. I had never even seen a picture of a tailorbird, and had only a vague idea of what a mongoose looked like. After learning something about these animals, the real challenge began. How do I make a human look like a snake, or bird, or muskrat without losing all the fun human attitudes these animal characters have? The answer was to suggest qualities of the animals without trying to design costumes that actually attempt to make actors look as though they were animals. What looks a bit like fur, but is not fur? Velvet, ruffles or tassels, perhaps. What fabric looks like snakeskin but is not fake snakeskin? Shiny brocade (a fabric with a raised design woven into it) with spots and sparkly black beads does a great job! Shape was also very important. How do I make a human body remind us of a bird? Poufy bloomers give the shape of a birds fluffy body, while ruffles or pleats can do the trick for wings.

Fabric textures and treatments that can be used to suggest fur or feathers

To make sure the costumes stand out in front of a very boldly colored set, at one design meeting we took the set designers painted sketches and laid a variety of fabric swatches (fabric samples) on top of them. We

found the fabrics that worked best had patterns or some metallic element to them. Youll see those materials used

throughout the costumes.

The dhoti is a long piece of cloth loosely wrapped around the waist and legs and tied at the waist. Its basic shape is

used for Chuchus and Rikkis pants.

Sketch of Chuchus costume. His turban shape suggests a muskrats ears.

Swatches of fabric and trim used for Chuchus costume

The director and the design team (costume, set, lighting and sound designers) also had to decide how much of our world would evoke India. The play is set in an Indian garden with animals native to that land, but it is also a very unreal world, with many Western sensibilities and one animal, a muskrat, that is native to North America. Our team did not want real-looking animals, or exact copies of traditional Indian wear. We landed in a world that used some of the beautiful colors and shapes seen in Indian traditional clothing, which helped to suggest the colors, shapes and textures of the animals. A turban made out of black beads became a great cobra head. The drape of the traditional mens dhoti (a garment that covers the lower body) became the inspiration for a costume piece that could suggest the soft haunch of a mongoose or muskrat. By combing the vast worlds of Indian fashion and the animal kingdom, I designed our plays own unique costume world.


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The details of the sleeves of this Indian garment were the inspiration for Rikkis sleeves

Rikkis costume. Her long hair represents a mongoose tail.

Some of the fabrics and trim that will be used to make Rikkis costume

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Sometimes ideas come from surprising places. This man is sitting in front of a plant so it looks like his turban has feathers coming out of the top of it. That became the design for Darzees headdress.

Nag with his hood open. The pencil sketch shows his coat closed. Instead of designing a hood the actor

would need to hold above his head, we decided to create something that could change his body shape closer to

where a cobras hood extends fromjust below his head.

A brocade fabric that will be Nags

snakeskin

The coat this Indian man is wearing is

called a sherwani, and its long, sleek shape inspired Nags coat.

A turban in this shape

covered with shiny black beads that look like the scales on a snake create

Nags turban.

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RIKKI REINTERPRETED: Y YORKS TAKE ON KIPLINGS CLASSIC

Nobody dies a violent death. Thats a big change right there. And its funnymore like A Bugs Life than Beowulf. In Y Yorks play The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi the characters resolve their conflicts with a certain amount of comically clumsy conflict, but without any killing. In Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the famous Rudyard Kipling story upon which Ys play is loosely based, Rikki the mongoose fights and kills three venomous snakes who are themselves trying to kill a British family living in India. It is, as Kipling writes in the first sentence of his story, the story of a war.

True, in both the play and the story, Rikki destroys a nest of cobra eggs, but in very different ways and for very different reasons. From Kiplings story:

Rikki-tikki ... found twenty-five eggs, about the size of a bantams eggs, but with whitish skin instead of shell.

I was not a day too soon, he said, for he could see the baby cobras curled up inside the skin, and he knew that the minute they were hatched they could each kill a man or a mongoose. He bit off the tops of the eggs as fast as he could, taking care to crush the young cobras, and turned over the litter from time to time to see whether he had missed any.

In Ys play Rikki and Chuchu the muskrat gobble down the eggs because they are very hungry, while Darzee the tailorbird looks on, disgusted:

RIKKI: (eating) Yum yum yum. CHUCHU: (eating) Snake eggs. RIKKI: Snake snacks. DARZEE: Yuk. CHUCHU: Snake os. RIKKI: Snake-ettes. DARZEE: Ick.

Food and hunger play a big part in Ys play. In Kiplings story, Rikki does not eat a single egg. He also eats none of the three snakes he kills. He is more interested in keeping himself in fighting trim to protect the family that has adopted him as a pet. After he kills

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the venomous snake Karait, Rikki-tikki was just going to eat him up from the tail, after the custom of his family at dinner, when he remembered that a full meal makes a slow mongoose, and if he wanted all his strength and quickness ready, he must keep himself thin.

Kiplings Rikki is a warrior, and violence and dark fate hang over Kiplings tale. As soon as he sees Rikki, Nag the cobra knows, that mongooses in the garden meant death ... for him and his family, and Nag is right. He, his wife and all their offspring are killed in the end. Rikki, a mongoose, must fight and kill snakes. It is his destiny. When Rikki first encounters Nag, He was afraid for a minute, but it is impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra beforehe knew that all a grown mongooses business in life was to fightsnakes.

And just as Rikki cannot be a coward, Chuchundra, Kiplings cowardly muskrat (actually a musk-shrew), is fated never to be brave:

Chuchundra is a broken-hearted little beast. He whimpers and cheeps all the night, trying to make up his mind to run into the middle of the room. But he never gets there.

Although Chuchu, Ys reinvention of Chuchundra, is also an easily frightened creature, in the end he finds the courage to stand up to Nag and convince him to leave the garden forever, in return for the last, uneaten cobra egg.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was published in 1894 as part of The Jungle Book, which also contained the Mowgli stories. It was a time when the British still ruled India, as they had for hundreds of years. In fact, the British Empire covered about a quarter of the entire world then. Kiplings story, while it contains empathy for all the animals it depicts, even the snakes, is a story of its time, written from a Caucasian, British perspective. The story celebrates martial bravery, ruthless cunning, loyalty and destiny. By contrast, in Y Yorks play The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi, which premiered at the Honolulu Theatre for Youth in 1998, the animals can learn to overcome the faults in their natures, to share and compromise, and discover new strengths and abilities that allow them to resolve their problems without bloodshed.


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A FEW THINGS ABOUT INDIA

India is part of the continent of Asia. Most of India forms a peninsula, which means it is surrounded by water on three sides. The worlds highest mountain range, the Himalaya, rises in the north. Indias terrain varies widely, from the Thar Desert in the west to jungles in the northeast.

The climate of India varies across the entire country. Northern areas, such as the Himalaya, have winter snow, while there are tropical conditions in the south. India is very well known for its extremely hot climate in many parts of the country. The rainy season, known as monsoon season, begins in June and lasts four to seven months, depending on the part of the country.

India is the fourth largest country on the continent of Asia and the seventh largest country in the world. It has a population of over 1.27 billion peoplethats 1,270,000,000almost four times that of the United States. China is the only country that has more people than India.

For thousands of years, since the Hindu religion first evolved,

respect for animal life has been an important part of many Indians beliefs. Cows in particular are sacred to Hindus and cannot be harmed. They are even allowed

to wander through city streets, which often causes traffic jams.

Indias varied climate zones support about 65,000 animal species, including elephants, pythons, river dolphins, rhinos and 12,000 types of flowering plants. It is the only country in the world with both lions and tigers. Its also a bird watchers paradise.

Hindi and English are the official languages of India, but many different languages are spoken there, including Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil and Urdu.

A part of the Himalaya range

The Thar desert, also known as the Great Indian Desert

Jungle ferns

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National Symbols of India:

The most popular sports in India are field hockey, cricket and soccer.

Dance is the most popular art form in India. Every state in India has its own traditional dance.

Our numeral system originated in India, as did chess, martial arts, yoga, algebra, and in the thirteenth century the game Snakes and Ladders (now often known as Chutes and Ladders) was created. The ladders in the game stood for good qualities and the snakes were evils.

Information taken from various sources, including:National Geographic Kids http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/countries/india.htmlFacts about India http://www.facts-about-india.com/Science Kids http://sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/countries/india.html

Animal - The Royal Bengal tiger. Bird - The peacock.

Fruit - The mango. There are over 100 varieties of mangoes grown, in different sizes, shapes and colors.

Flower - The lotus, a flower sacred to Hindus that holds a special place in the art and mythology of ancient India and Indian culture.

Tree - The banyan tree. This huge tree towers over its neighbors and has the widest reaching roots of all known trees.

Children dancing for the spring festival of Holi

The amazing roots of a banyan tree

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THE ANIMALS IN THE GARDEN

In The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi we meet four animals: Rikki the mongoose, Darzee the tailorbird, Chuchu the muskrat and Nag the cobra. Since they are characters in a story they do many things that real animals dont do. For example, a tailorbird wouldnt try to trick a mongoose to make it go away and a muskrat wouldnt put on a snakes shed skin to practice being scary. But the characters are based on very interesting creatures from real life and, except for the muskrat, all of them are native to India.

MONGOOSE

The word mongoose comes from the Indian name mungus. The typical mongoose has a long, slender body, short legs, long tail, small and round head with short muzzle, and ears low on the side of the head.

There are more than 40 different species, or types, of mongoose. Most live in Africa, Asia and southern Europe. The meerkat of southwestern Africa is a member of the mongoose family. Different species of mongoose live in different environments. Some live in the tops of trees while others live partially in the water.

The Indian grey mongoose lives in southern Asiamainly India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. People spy these creatures in open forests, scrublands and fields, often close to where humans make their homes. They live in burrows, hedgerows and thickets, among groves of trees, taking shelter under rocks or bushes and even in drains. They are very bold and inquisitive but careful, seldom moving far from cover.

Mongooses feed mostly on insects, crabs, earthworms, lizards, snakes, eggs, chickens and rodents. They are fast and skillful hunters that search for prey by smell and sight. The mongoose sniffs the ground and turns over rocks and stones in its search for food. It eats anything it can catch. Some species of

mongoose lead solitary lives, seeking out food only for themselves. Others travel in groups where they tend to cooperate and share food.

Some species, such as the Indian mongoose, are used to fight and kill venomous snakes, even cobras. They are able to do this because of their agility and cunning, their thick fur which makes it harder for the cobras fangs to reach their skin, and their speed. Mongooses attack from above and then swerve aside, avoiding the cobras strike. Although mongooses are not immune to snake venom, they are able to take unusually large doses of it. But they typically avoid cobras when they can.

Many mongoose species are known for the way they open eggs. The animal stands on its hind legs and hits the egg against the ground. Sometimes it carries the egg to a rock and, standing with its back to the

An indian grey mongoose

Deciding how to open an egg

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rock, throws the egg between its legs and against the rock until the shell is broken. The Madagascar narrow-striped mongoose lies on its side and uses all four feet to toss the egg. Mongooses do the same thing with other hard-shelled foods, like nuts or mollusks.

Some species are very comfortable around humans. Rudyard Kipling wrote, A perfectly wild mongoose used to come and sit on my shoulder in my office in India, and burn his inquisitive nose on the end of my cigar, just as Rikki did in the tale. Some people keep mongooses as pets to control vermin. However, they can be destructivepeople brought them into the West Indies to kill rats and snakes, but they killed many other species as well, destroying most of the small, ground-based wildlife. For this reason, it is illegal to import most species of mongoose into the United States, Australia and some other countries.

TAILORBIRD

The tailorbird is a songbird that lives in tropical Asia. The character Darzee gets her name from the word for tailor in Urdu, a language from the Indian subcontinent.

These warblers are usually brightly colored, with green or grey upperparts and yellow, white or grey underparts. They often have a rust-colored forehead and crown. Tailorbirds have short rounded wings, long upright tails, strong

legs and long curved bills. They measure 5 inches (13 centimeters) long.

This bird is usually spotted in the edges of forests, in scrub and in cultivated areas such as parks and gardens. They are also found in open country. But they are never seen in the deep forest.

Tailorbirds get their name from the nests that they makethey sew a pouch out of green, living leaves. First, they curl the edges of a leaf together by twisting spider web strands around it. Then they make tiny holes on the edges of the leaf with their pointed bills. Through the holes, they lace fibers from bark, cottony seeds, spider webs or even household thread to join the edges together. Then they tease the opposite ends of these fibers into balls so the fiber wont slip back out of the hole. It is actually more like riveting the leaf edges than sewing. They mostly use a single large leaf, but sometimes up to three smaller leaves may be sewn together. The birds line the nest with grass and soft fluffy seeds. Living leaves provide a snug and waterproof home, which is also well-camouflaged. Usually, it is the female that sews the nest together.

Bird watchers find tailorbirds alone or in pairs, usually low in the undergrowth or sometimes hopping on the ground. The birds forage for insects and sometimes feed on beetles and bugs. They may also snack on small fruits, berries, sip some nectar (they seem to favor the flowers of mangoes) or eat tiny seeds.

Tailorbirds are strong singers, making calls which are much louder than seem possible for such tiny birds. People hear their songs more often than they see these


A tailorbirds nest. Notice the fibers

holding the edges of the leaf together.

birds. Thats because tailorbirds are active and restless. They constantly shift their perch in the thickets and make short, quick darting flights.

MUSKRAT

In Rudyard Kiplings original story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, he called Chuchundra a muskrat, but it is more likely he was referring to a musk shrew, which is native to India. In fact the musk shrew is called chuchundra there, which is clearly where Kipling got Chuchus name. A musk shrew is not a rodent but is rat-like in appearance, so calling the animal a musk-rat may have been Kiplings way of commenting on its look and behavior. But no matter what Kipling intended, in Y Yorks adaptation of Kiplings story Chuchu is a muskrat, so thats the animal well take a look at.

The muskrat is a rodent that looks like a small beaver. It is native to North America where it is still widespread north of Mexico. But the muskrat has been introduced into many areas where it did not originally live. In the early 1900s people brought muskrats to northern Europe and Asia, where they quickly made themselves at home. In 1905, a European prince brought five muskrats back to Europe with him after an Alaskan hunting trip and placed them in ponds on an estate near Prague, Czechoslovakia. All the muskrats in Europe today are probably descended from those five animals.

In several Native American creation myths, it is the muskrat that dives to the bottom of the sea to bring up the mud from which the earth is created after other animals have failed at the task. Native Americans have long considered the muskrat to be a very important animal. Some predict winter snowfall levels by observing the size and timing of muskrat lodge construction.

Muskrats build their lodge homes in lakes, ponds, rivers and marshes. They heap up a dome-shaped mound of mud, cattails and other plants until it rises above the surface. Then they dig a tunnel from the base up into the mound. Just inside the top, a few inches above the water, they hollow out a room. The

room may have one or more tunnels leading into it and some large dens have several rooms. Muskrats are not especially sociable, although several adults may live in one home during the winter. In summer, a den is usually occupied by only one family.

Muskrats spend much of their time in the water and are well suited for this life. Their brownish red fur is warm and waterproof. Their underfur is fine and thick. They can close their ears to keep water out. Their back feet are partly webbed to act as paddles, although

for swimming they mainly use their tails. They have long tails covered with scales rather than hair. Their slightly flat tails have a shape unlike the tails of any other animal. When muskrats walk on land their tails drag on the ground, which makes their tracks easy to recognize.


A muskrat swimming

A muskrats lodge

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The muskrat is an excellent swimmer and diver and can travel 180 feet (55 meters) underwater (about half the length of a soccer field) without coming up for air. It can stay underwater up to 20 minutes at a time and can swim backwards or forward. The muskrats sight, hearing and sense of smell are poor, but it has a very good sense of direction. Muskrats follow trails they make in swamps and the bottom of ponds. When the water freezes, they continue to follow their trails under the ice.

Muskrats are most active at night or near dawn and dusk. They feed on cattails and other water plants. They do not store food for the winter, but sometimes eat the insides of their homes. Plants make up almost all of their diet, but they also eat small animals, such as freshwater mussels, frogs, crayfish, fish and small turtles.

Some people hunt muskrats for their thick, glossy fur and in some areas people eat muskrats. Many other animals eat muskrats, including mink, foxes, coyotes, wolves, lynx, bears, eagles, snakes, alligators, large owls and hawks. Caribou and elk sometimes eat muskrat lodges during the winter when food is scarce.

COBRA

Cobra is the Portuguese word for snake. In English and in some other languages, it is used as the name for any of the species of poisonous snakes which, when sensing a threat, raise up their heads and extend

the ribs in their necks to stretch the skin and create a hood. Naja is the name for the genus or type of snake known as true cobras. This name is from the Sanskrit nga (with a hard g) meaning snake. Rudyard Kipling got the name for the character Nag from this word.

In many cultures, snakes are symbols of strength, creativity and of creation itself. No snake is seen in this way more often than the cobra. It has been worshipped in India for thousands of years.

The Hindu god Shiva meditates with a cobra around his neck, and the god Vishnu rests on the cosmic cobra Ananta while dreaming the universe into being. In Buddhism a seven-headed cobra, the Nagaraja or king of the cobras, shelters the Buddha as he attains enlightenment. And in Tibet, cobras symbolize protectors of treasures hidden in the water and earth.

The Indian cobra is very poisonous. It is also called the spectacled cobra because it has a spectacle or eyeglass-like design behind its hood. It is one of the most beautiful snakes found in India and Southeast Asia. This snake can grow up to seven to nine feet long.

As a snake grows, its skin does not grow along with it the same way yours doesits skin gets stretched and worn. A new layer of skin grows under the old layer. When the new layer is ready, the snake has to shed the outer layer to expose the clean, fresh skin underneath. The snake brushes its head against something rough and hard, like a rock, to tear an opening in the skin. It keeps working on this opening, peeling it back until it can crawl out of the skin,


An Indian cobra

The cobras hood fully open reveals the

spectacle pattern.

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turning it inside out in one long piece. Young snakes shed every few weeks. Older snakes usually shed four to eight times a year.

Cobras live in hot tropical areas in Africa and Southern Asia. Some types dwell in grasslands forests, along the shores of lakes or in deserts. They can be found in trees, underground and under rocks.

Most cobras hunt in the evening and at night, although some species forage during the heat of the day. Cobras, like other snakes, can go for days or even months without feeding, depending on the size of their last meal and their recent activity. They eat small mammals, birds, snakes, lizards, frogs, eggs and even fish. When cobras bite, their short front fangs

deliver venom, a poison it produces, into the prey. These snakes are hunters and will quietly follow their prey until they are ready to attack. They can move very fast and can speed along the ground even with their heads raised.

Besides the mongoose, other enemies of the snake include birds of prey, large rats, wild boar and other snakes. It should come as no surprise though, that a cobras biggest enemies are people.

It might be difficult to believe, but cobras, like all snakes, are timid. A snakes first strategy for evading enemies is to escape and hide.

But there are times when even an alert cobra gets surprised by an unsuspecting person or other large animal. When this happens the cobra spreads its hood to make itself look bigger. Cobras will often hiss as well and the hissing and hood together make a frightening display. But hooding and hissing is not a sign of aggressionthe cobra is trying to scare off potential predators. Snakes do not mean to harm people, they only attack people to defend themselves.

Information excerpted and adapted from various sources, including:

MongooseEncyclopedia Britannica Kids http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/article-9275901/mongooseA-Z Animals http://a-z-animals.com/animals/mongoose/

Tailorbirdhttp://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/birds/Orthotomus.htm

MuskratNew World Encyclopedia http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/MuskratEncyclopedia Britannica Kids http://kids.britannica.com/elementary/article-353510/muskrat?#9353510.toc

CobraCape Snake Conservation http://www.capesnakeconservation.com/the-ultimate-cobra-snake-facts-guide/Buzzle http://www.buzzle.com/articles/cobra-snake-facts.html

Drawing of the Hindu god Vishnu on the many-headed cobra Ananta

Shed snakeskin. Pretty cool looking, dont you think?

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FABULOUS ANIMALS


Animals cant talk. Except in stories. A short story with talking animals is called a fable. Fables usually have a message, or moral. Fables come from all over the world. This fable comes from India.

THE OWL AND HIS SCHOOL

An owl named Old Wisdom ran a school. The owl asked his students, Why does the moon shine in the sky at night?

The dog said, So I can find the thieves prowling around my masters house.

The glow-worm said, Because the moon envies my light and wants to put me in the shade.

The rabbit said, To bring the dew for me to drink when morning comes.

The nightingale said, So that my lady-love can see me sing to her.

The fox said, To guide me to the hen house.

Enough! said Old Wisdom. We have not learned why the moon shines. But we have learned that each of you thinks it shines for you alone.

Animals in fables (we can call them fabulous animals) behave partly like animals and partly like people. Some real-life foxes do eat chickens. Rabbits do drink dew in the morning. But glow-worms do not go to school. And owls do not run schools. Fabulous owls are often wise, because owls look wise to us. But in real life, owls arent any wiser than other birds. Animals that we fear, like wolves, snakes and spiders, often appear as evil creatures in stories. But they are not really evil. Here is another fable from India about a crocodile who is partly evil and partly good.

THE MONKEY AND THE CROCODILE

A starving crocodile saw a monkey in a tree. The crocodile called out, Do you have any food for me? The monkey threw down fruit. The crocodile ate it up, although crocodiles do not usually eat fruit. The monkey and the crocodile became friends.

One day, the crocodile brought some fruit home to his wife. She said, This fruit is so sweet. The monkey eats this every day. He must be very tasty. Why dont you invite him to our home, so that we can eat him? He is my best friend! said the crocodile. I could never do that.

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But the crocodiles wife said, If I do not eat that monkeys heart I will die.

So the crocodile invited the monkey to his home across the river. I cant swim, said the monkey. Ride on my back, replied the crocodile.

In the middle of the river, the crocodile told the monkey, My wife is very ill. She must eat a monkey heart to live. This is the end of our friendship and your life. The monkey said, My friend, I would gladly die to save your wifes life. But I left my heart back in my tree. Take me back and I will get it for you. So the crocodile took the monkey back.

As soon as he was safe in his tree, the monkey called out, Foolish crocodile. We monkeys carry our hearts inside us, the same as you crocodiles. I will not give you fruit or speak to you again. And the crocodile swam sadly away.

The Monkey and the Crocodile has more than one moral. Heres one of them: Quick thinking can save your life. What other morals can you find in the fable?

The Monkey and the Crocodile comes from the Panchatantra. The Panchatantra is a collection of fables that was written down over two thousand years ago. Some of the stories in it are much older than that. It was written in Sanskrit, an ancient language of India. In Sanskrit, the word Panchatantra means Five Teachings and looks like this: . One fable in the Panchatantra, The Brahmani and the Mongoose, inspired Rudyard Kiplings story, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

Fables are often created by storytellers, people who tell their stories out loud, not writers. Fables may be passed on by word of mouth for thousands of years. There are many fables all over the world that have never been written down. And people create more fables every day. You could create one yourself.

Sources:Panchatantra stories http://www.talesofpanchatantra.com/Indian Fables by Ramaswami Raju

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THE BRAHMANI AND THE MONGOOSE


This classic Indian fable, which inspired Rudyard Kiplings Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, is presented here in three ways: in Hindi, one of the official languages of India and the fourth most widely spoken language in the world; in the phonetic pronunciation of the Hindi; and in the English version, which is not a word-for-word translation.

The Hindi is written in Devanagari also called Nagaria type of alphabet of India and Nepal. Devanagari has 13 vowels and 36 consonants. It is written from left to right and is recognizable by a horizontal line that runs along the top of letters. Because it is the standardized script for Hindi, Nepali, Marathi and many other languages and dialects, Devanagari is one of the most widespread writing systems in the world.

HINDI:

- ,

- , , ,

PHONETIC PRONUNCIATON:

ka gnva m ka dhrmika brhmaa rahat th. Usak patn k k santna nah th. Usan mana bahaln k li ka nval pla liy th. Nval k brhmaa k ghara m ghman-phiran k pr svatantrat th. Brhma k nval bahuta adhika pyr th. Kucha din k bda brhma k ghara ka b k janma hu. Brhmaa n Brhma s kah ki aba hamr santna h ga hai, isali nval k ghara s nikla d. Kah ais na h ki nval bacc k nukasna kara d. Brhma n Brhma k bta na mn.

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ka dina brhma ku para pn bharan ga. Bacc plan m s rah th aura nval plan k psa rma kara rah th. Itan m kis tarapha s ghara m ka smpa gay. Vaha bacc k ra kan k bah. Nval n yaha saba dkha liy. Nval smpa k atru ht hai. Nval n smpa k uka-uka kara di. Ghara m khna h khna h gay. Nval n bacc k jna bac d yaha dikhn k li vaha ghara k daravj para baih. Brhma jaba ku s pn bharakara lau taba usan khna s lathapatha nval k daravj para dkh. Vaha nval k dkhakara ghabar ga aura yaha samajh ki usan bacc k mra l hai, isali guss m brhma n nval para pn bhar gha d mr. Brhma rt hu ghara k andara ga, dkh ki bacc plan m sy hu hai. Psa m smpa mar hu pa hai. Yaha dkhakara vaha apan bhla para pachatn lag, usak apan bhla mlma hu.

ENGLISH:

In a village there lived a religious Brahmin and his wife. They had no children. The Brahmin found a mongoose and brought him home as a pet. The Brahmani (his wife) thought that the mongoose was very cute. The pet was free to wander throughout the house. In due time, a son was born to the couple. The Brahmin told his wife that now it was unsafe to have a mongoose in the house and that they should go release the pet from where they had found him. But the wife didnt listen to him.

One day when the husband was out for work, the Brahmani had to leave to fetch water at the well. The baby was sleeping in the crib and the mongoose was resting nearby. She didnt want to leave the baby alone but needed water. Since the well was close by, she decided to go. As she left, a snake slithered into the house and moved towards the child. The mongoose, being the enemy of the snake, attacked and shredded it to pieces. The mongooses face and the floor were covered in blood. To show off that he had saved the life of the boy, the mongoose went to stand at the door step. When the Brahmani returned she was terrified and thought that the mongoose had killed her son! She threw the heavy pot full of water at his head and ran inside to check on her sononly to find him fast asleep in his crib. Nearby she saw the dead snake and understood what had happened. Instantly she realized her mistake and ran to the mongoose to thank him, but it was too late. The mongoose was dead.

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YES, YOU CAN

Some of the time, life is easy. Other times, challenges stare us in the face. Challenges come in all sorts of sizes. Rikki the mongoose, Darzee the tailorbird and Chuchu the muskrat have to find a way to protect themselves from a dangerous cobra, Nag. That counts as a pretty big challenge, dont you think? How can they figure out what to do?

The three of them dont start off as a very good team. Darzee thinks she is in charge of everything and wants Rikki out of the garden. Chuchu is shy and doesnt believe he is smart or brave. Rikki knows that shes too young to face Nag on her own. But they realize they have to find a way to work together. Thats the first stepagreeing to try.

Next, they have to come up with a plan. Darzee and Chuchu already had a scare someone away from the garden idea. They were going to use it on Rikki. But they realize that Nag is the real threat. So they decide to go ahead and dress Chuchu up in Nags shed skin, but instead of doing it to scare Rikki, they will do it so Rikki can practice by pretending to fight a pretend cobra.

But their plan fails. Nag shows up before Rikki is ready and now they are in real danger. Until Chuchu remembers Darzee explaining how important eggs are to egg-laying creatures. Chuchu realizes that cobras lay eggs just like birds do. This gives him the idea for a plan to get rid of Nag that works. Success!

Our heroes turned into a good team. They worked together, learned from each other and their mistakes and they kept trying.

How about you? What can you do when you have a challenge? No matter what size it is, you can do some of the same things Rikki, Darzee and Chuchu do.

First, tell yourself that you are going to try to do your best, that you can do it.

Next, come up with a plan. Some challenges are too big to finish all at onceif you want to be a diver you dont start by jumping off the highest board into the deep end of the pool. So what do you need to do first? What do you do after that? Just like Chuchu, Rikki and Darzee, we dont always have the answers to what we need on our own. If you arent sure where to start, talk to someone who can help you make a safe plana teacher, someone in your family or a friend who has done what you are trying to do.

Then, get started. Try it. Did it work? Great. Did it fail? Great. Failing can be a good thing. It isnt fun, but sometimes the best ideas come when something doesnt work. Failure teaches you things. Ask for more help if you need it. Every time you try again, you get better at what you are doing and you get closer to beating the challenge. Dont give up.

There are so many wonderful things in the world for you to learn and do. Youll never know what you can do until you try, especially with a little help from your friends.

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WORDS & PHRASES THAT MIGHT BE NEW TO YOUYou must have a very limited acquaintanceship. people you know

Actually, if I may be perfectly frank. honest

Cobra casserole. Every Thursday. food baked in a deep dish. Casseroles are usually a mix of meat, noodles and vegetables.

One that slithers and pounces? slithers travels with a sliding motion pounces jumps quickly to grab something

Bird droppings. Dropping right on your sleeping head! poop

The skin that Nag shed. removed. Snake skin doesnt grow the way ours does. When snakes outgrow the skin they are in, they shed the outer layer revealing the fresh skin underneath.

My goodness, thats convincing. believable

Angry and hungry, not to be tampered with. messed around

You cant desert us in our time of need. leave

Can we get down to business? start doing what we need to do

A solemn oath never to be broken. solemn serious oath promise

Quiche? Souffl? quiche pie made with eggs, milk, cheese and vegetables or meat souffl food made with eggs that is baked until its top rises and it becomes light and fluffy

They throw up into the baby birds open craw. pouch in the throat where food can be kept

And after weeks and weeks and weeks of this non-stop feeding frenzy, the bird has wings, and the parents push it out of the nest and it flies and flies. wild, excited eating

A slip of the tongue. an accidental mistake when speaking

I will hypnotize this creature so it doesnt give you any trouble. put into a trance

No, its a pathetic little baby. weak

Ill smash this last one to smithereens. little shattered pieces

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JUMP STARTIdeas for things to do, wonder about, talk about or write about before or after you see The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi.

Dance like a cobra. Now dance like someone pretending to be a cobra but not doing a very good job.

Darzee is a tailorbird so she sews her nest together. If people made nests, what kind might people with different jobs or interests make? A firefighter, carpenter, artist, barista, mechanic, librarian? Draw one of their nests.

Walk, run or hop like your favorite animal and have your friends guess what animal you are. See if you can guess what animals your friends are.

Why does Darzee lie to Rikki about so many things?

Tell the story of the garden the way Nag sees it, where he is the good guy and Rikki, Darzee and Chuchu are the bad guys.

What is the most important thing friends should do for each other?

If the story took place in the Pacific Northwest instead of India, what four animals might be in it? What names would you give them?

Do you have any friends that you didnt like when you first met? Why did that change?

If you were Rikki, would you stay in the garden to get rid of Nag?

Make up a song about where you live.

Do you know anyone who is bossy like Darzee? Do you get along with that person? How do you do it?

Draw the most amazing garden ever. You can put anything you want in it.

When they are thinking, Darzee paces and Chuchu puts his head on the ground with his butt sticking up in the air. What do you do when you need to think about how to solve a problem? Where do you go?

Does Teddy tell his parents he plays with the animals in the garden? What do they think about that?

Rikki Tikki Tavis name comes from the sound she makes to warn others that she is angry or scaredrikki tikki, rikki tikki, rikki tikki. Play with repeating your name and make it sound like youre happy, angry, scared, sad, proud or excited.

If Rikki had met Chuchu in the garden first instead of Darzee, how would the story be different?

Why does Chuchu want to be scary?

Who do you think is the bravest animal in this story? Why?

What kinds of fun things do you think the animals will do together once they learn to share the garden?

What is your favorite outdoors place to be? Why is it special to you?

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DRAMA IN ACTION

*A Dramashop is an interactive drama-workshop that Seattle Childrens Theatre offers to schools and community groups through our Education Outreach Program. Dramashops explore the themes, characters, historical context and production elements of SCT Mainstage plays. Professional SCT teaching artists work with students for an hour, fleshing out themes and ideas through dynamic theatre exercises. Dramashops can occur either before or after seeing the play and can be held at SCT or at your location. Students get on their feet in these participatory workshops, stretching their imaginations while learning about the play.

For information about bringing a Dramashop to your classroom or community group, email [email protected].

This is a customized The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi Dramashop* exercise for you to try.

EXERCISE: Rikki Tikki Blast Back GRADES: Age 5 and up TIME: 10 minutes SET-UP: This exercise works best in an open space SUPPLIES: None

INSTRUCTIONS: In the play, when Rikki Tikki Tavi the mongoose sees Nag the cobra, she scares him out of the garden with her battle cry of rikki tikki, rikki tikki. In this exercise, students practice being sneaky, much like Nag, with the objective of creating a nest for precious eggs. Students are challenged to move quietly through space without being seen by the leader.

Stand in the middle of an open space. Count down from five to zero. Within that time limit students find a spot to stand, facing you, on the perimeter of the room. When you say go, the students sneak in to create a nest (holding-hands circle) around you.

Challenge the students to move without letting you see them moving. As you turn around, if you see a student move, point to them and say, rikki tikki, rikki tikki. That student must go back to the perimeter of the open space and begin again.

Once the group has successfully made a holding-hands circle around you, take a moment to ask students what tactics they used to move forward without being seen.

OPTIONAL SECTION Pre-exercise warm-up: Students move around the open space in neutral, walking with arms at side. When you say stop, they freeze their body in their exact position at that moment. When you say go, they resume a neutral walk. Repeat these prompts at varying intervals. Next, prompt the students to move through the space as if they are sneaking somewhere. Observe aloud what you see. Tell them about how Nag sneaks through the garden. Prompt them to move like Nag.

VARIATIONS: Give the group a time-limit to reach their goal. If two or more students are connected by hands and one of them moves, all those

connected are told rikki tikki, rikki tikki to begin again at the perimeter.

Number these events in the order they happen in the story.

Draw a picture of the event in the correct box.

_____ Rikki, dressed as a snake, dances with Nag. _____ Rikki meets Darzee and Chuchu in the garden. _____ Darzee, Chuchu and Rikki celebrate that Nag has left the garden forever. _____ Nag hides his eggs in a bush.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Tell the story in pictures.

What order did these tjhings

ahappenin?

1

4 3

2

MY GARDEN

In The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi, Rikki meets animals who are different, but who have a lot in common too. We are each different from our friends and family, but we also share a lot in common with them.

SHARING THE GARDEN

Fill this first garden by writing down things you like to do. Do you like to read? Play at the beach? Draw? Then put it in your garden!

Write the name of a person you know in each of the other gardens. Fill their garden with things that you think they like to do. Are there any words that are in both your garden and one or more of theirs? Circle them!

______________S GARDEN

______________S GARDEN

______________S GARDEN

BOOKLIST

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For Children & Young Adults:

FictionThe Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling

Mouse CountEllen Stoll Walsh

The Greedy Python (The World of Eric Carle)Richard Buckley

Just So Stories Rudyard Kipling

Friends: Snake and LizardJoy Cowley

A Crazy Day with Cobras (Magic Tree House #45)Mary Pope Osborne

Poppy (Tales from Dimwood Forest)Avi

Monkey: A Trickster Tale from IndiaGerald McDermottMonkeys longing for delicious mangoes puts him right in the path of hungry Crocodile. Like Rikki Tikki Tavi, this small monkey must outwit a much larger predator.

Booklist prepared by Jill OlsonKing County Library System

Nonfiction Animal Heroes: True Rescue StoriesSandra Markle

Tarra & Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best FriendsCarol Buckley

Welcome to IndiaPatrick Ryan

Dog Finds Lost Dolphins: And More True Stories of Amazing Animal HeroesElizabeth Carney

WebsiteNational Geographic is a great resource for information about cobras, mongooses and more.http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

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Engaging young people with the arts is what we are all about at SCT. We hope that the Active Audience Guide has helped enhance and extend the theater experience for your family or your students beyond seeing the show.

Wed love to hear your feedback about the guide. You can email your comments to us at [email protected]

Educators, your input is very valuable to us. Please take a moment to go online and answer this brief survey: http://www.instant.ly/s/Uw6W6

Thank you for your support.

Seattle Childrens Theatre, which celebrates its 40th season in 2014-2015, performs September through June in the Charlotte Martin and Eve Alvord Theatres at Seattle Center. SCT has gained acclaim as a leading producer of professional theatre, educational programs and new scripts for young people. By the end of its 2013-2014 season, SCT had presented over 230 plays, including 110 world premieres, entertaining over 4 million children.

an active audience guide — the garden of rikki tikki tavi

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