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Biography

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is the protagonist from Rudyard Kipling's 1894 short story of the same name, which was first published in his 1894 anthology novel The Jungle Book. Rikki is described as an Indian gray mongoose. In the story, Rikki becomes the pet of an English family residing in India. He becomes friendly with some of the other creatures inhabiting their garden and is warned of the cobras Nag and Nagaina, who are angered by the human family's presence in their territory and fear Rikki as a threat. Accordingly Nag enters the house's bathroom before dawn to kill the humans and make Rikki leave. Rikki attacks Nag from behind in the darkness. The ensuing struggle awakens the family, and the father kills Nag with a shotgun blast while Rikki bites down on the hood of the struggling male cobra. The grieving female snake Nagaina attempts revenge against the humans, cornering them as they have breakfast on a veranda. She is distracted by a female tailor bird, (the husband is singing Nag's death,) while Rikki destroys the cobra's unhatched brood of eggs, except for one. He carries it to where Nagaina is threatening to bite little Teddy, while his parents watch helplessly. Nagaina recovers her egg but is pursued by Rikki away from the house to the cobra's underground nest, where an unseen final battle takes place. Rikki emerges triumphant from the hole, declaring Nagaina dead. With the immediate threat defeated, Rikki dedicates his life to guarding the garden, resulting in no snake even daring to enter it.