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Shanti is a minor character in Disney's 19th full-length animated feature film The Jungle Book and the tritagonist of its theatrical sequel The Jungle Book 2. She is Mowgli's best friend, later girlfriend.
In the original movie,she was voiced by Darleen Carr.
Shanti is a very beautiful, kind-hearted, sweet, caring, romantic and polite, yet intelligent, sensible, flirty and seductive girl. She is shown to deeply care for her friends, Mowgli and Ranjan. However, she also has a strong sense of duty as she takes her job seriously and she often gets irritated at Mowgli and Ranjan when they prank her, mostly about the jungle and the story of Shere Khan. She does not want Mowgli and Ranjan to run into troubles, so she stopped Mowgli before he and the children arrived at the river. Also, she was very afraid of the Jungle until she overcame her fear in order to save Mowgli. She also helped Baloo to protect Mowgli from Shere Khan by using the gong to distract the tiger.
Despite Shanti's initial fear of wild animals, she displayed no desire to harm them. This is shown when she told Ranjan to leave Kaa alone, despite knowing he tried to eat her moments before. This also shows that Shanti is a forgiving person even to those who have wronged her, as demonstrated by her reaction to the prank Mowgli and Ranjan played on her. After being pushed into the village river and left soaking wet, Shanti scolded Mowgli for the cruel mischief but held no grudge against him, showcasing her maturity. However, when she found out that Mowgli tried to have Baloo scare her away in case she found him, she was heartbroken and found it difficult to forgive the boy to the point where she refused to listen to Mowgli's attempts to explain himself.
Shanti and Mowgli have different opinions on the jungle, usually leading to friendly or sometimes serious arguments. In many ways, Shanti's mindset is the opposite of Mowgli's. While Mowgli is rebellious, wild, naïve, and carefree, Shanti is compliant, civilized, mature, and responsible. Despite this, Mowgli has had a rather positive influence on Shanti and vice versa. Mowgli has inspired Shanti to become braver and not to grow up too fast while Shanti has inspired Mowgli to embrace responsibility and work ethics. The two learning from each other proved to be a key factor in developing their relationship.
Despite Shanti's serious nature, she is far from being devoid of child-like traits and often displays her playful side. Especially around Mowgli, who is capable of charming her into loosening up and letting out her fun-loving side, and occasionally she enjoys flirting with him. Being flirtatious is one of her most iconic traits. In fact, there are some instances in which her flirty demeanor borders on seductive, such as the day she met Mowgli. Upon meeting Mowgli, Shanti found the boy to be mysterious and lured him to the village so she could get to know him. When seeing his reluctance, she noticed how the man-cub gazed into her eyes. She used this to her advantage by half-closing her eyes, looking at the boy in a seductive manner, followed by a playful blink. After that day, Shanti's beautiful eyes became a recurring element in her relationship with Mowgli. Whenever Mowgli shows Shanti a good time, she usually opens her more kittenish side as she shows her appreciation and gratitude by letting the boy look into her eyes followed by batting her eyelashes, knowing how special her eyes are to him. Despite her flirtatious attitude, Shanti tends to deny her true feelings for Mowgli when she is around other people, fearing it would make her a subject of mockery, despite the fact that her family, Mowgli's family and apparently all the village children are supportive of them.
As noted before, Shanti is very intelligent. Although living in a rural village restricts her from formal education, she is very shrewd and perceptive. She was able to use those traits to lure Mowgli into the village, using her feminine charms after noticing how dazzled he was by her beauty. While looking for Mowgli in the jungle, Shanti was able to determine the man-cub's proximity by analyzing a curly-shaped mango peel that had been recently peeled and was taught to Mowgli by her.
Like Mowgli, Shanti is also very popular among the children of the Man Village, who admire her for her beauty, kindness and amicability. They even occasionally encourage her to take a break from her chores to participate in Mowgli's entertaining activities.
History[]
The Jungle Book[]
Shanti makes her brief appearance near the end of the Jungle Book, but she was not named until the sequel. On the way to the man village, Mowgli spots a creature he has never seen before: a girl. Mowgli requests a better look, but Baloo attempts to stop him, resulting in failure. Mowgli watches Shanti as she sings about her life and plays with her hair. She then spots his reflection in the water and looks up at him as he looks into her eyes. Mowgli falls off the tree he was peaking on and is easily noticed by Shanti. Shanti becomes smitten with him and lures him into the village by filling her jug with water, making sure the man cub is following her, and purposely dropping it. Mowgli refills the jug and follows her into the village.
The Jungle Book 2[]
Shanti makes her biggest appearance in The Jungle Book 2. She has become friends with (and has a crush on) Mowgli, but thinks that Mowgli is a bad influence on Ranjan. After Mowgli and Ranjan play a prank on Shanti as she collects water from the river outside the village, she takes Ranjan back to the village and lectures him. It soon goes into a song called "Jungle Rhythm". Mowgli almost leads all the children to the jungle until Shanti yells, "Stop!" Soon, Ranjan's father comes to tell the children, including Mowgli, to come back. Mowgli is then punished, and angrily blames at Shanti for getting him into trouble. She tries to tell him she was only trying to help, but Mowgli didn't want to hear it. That night, Shanti brings a bowl of fruit to Mowgli's hut as an apology. Little does she know that Shere Khan is waiting in the shadows of the village for Mowgli. Shanti soon finds Mowgli with Baloo and she shouts that there is a wild animal. This awakes the villagers and they attacked Shere Khan, unaware he is not the only wild animal. During the havoc, Baloo and Mowgli flee for the jungle. Shanti goes after them, not knowing that Ranjan had followed. As she searches for Mowgli, she encounters Kaa, the snake. He hypnotizes her and is about to eat her until Ranjan saves her by hitting the snake with a stick. The next day, as they still search for Mowgli, Shanti finds mango peelings. Later, she finds Mowgli, but Baloo attacks. He gets caught in some vines, and she punches him in the nose.
Mowgli accidentally reveals that he asked Baloo to attack her. She then runs off in anger with Ranjan in tow. Mowgli goes after them to apologize and finds them standing in fear as Shere Khan has found them. Mowgli then throws dust at him, and they run. Shere Khan goes after them. Mowgli tells Shanti and Ranjan to stay hidden and continues to run. Shanti then follows after Mowgli and the tiger as Ranjan meets Baloo and warns him of what is happening. The chase leads to an ancient temple where Baloo, Mowgli, and Shanti hide among its shadows. She meets Baloo and they start arguing until they both say that they are helping Mowgli. Soon, they hide behind a gong and bang them, confusing Shere Khan. However, Shanti's gong falls, showing herself to Shere Khan. He threatens to kill her if Mowgli does not show himself. He soon does and Shere Khan attacks. Baloo fights off the tiger long enough for Mowgli and Shanti to escape. The two run and leap upon a huge stone tiger head. As they climb, Shere Khan goes after them. However, the stone head collapses and it falls with Mowgli, Shere Khan, and Shanti. Luckily, Baloo catches the children as Shere Khan falls to a ledge, and is then trapped by the head. Soon Ranjan's parents and Shanti's mother find them and they return home, where Ranjan's father now understands that the jungle is a part of Mowgli. At the end of the film, Mowgli and Shanti have become a romantic couple and go to collect water from the river. They soon meet Baloo and Bagheera and sing a reprise of "The Bare Necessities".
Trivia[]
In The Jungle Book, Shanti is only known as "The Girl". In an old The Jungle Book comic made in 1972, her name was Sari. In The Jungle Book 2, her name is revealed to be Shanti. Also, in the original film, she only appeared near the end of the film, while in the sequel, she is now the deuteragonist and she has a larger role than in the original film.
An obscure foreign-language novelization rendered the village girl's name as "Jasmine". Obviously, this wouldn't fly after 1992, so the movie and subsequent merchandise and press material for the first film gave her a different name.
In The Jungle Book, Shanti is 10 years old. In The Jungle Book 2, set two years after, she is 10-12 years old.
Shanti's appearance in the Jungle Book is far from the one in the Jungle Book 2. In the first film, she is shown with pigtails and bows in her hair and wears pink, depicting a more feminine nature. Feeling that this design had become outdated, the sequel's crew gave her a more appropriate design that better reflects what a common girl would look like in central India during the 1890's, emphasizing more on cultural accuracy than her femininity. Shanti remains barefoot throughout the two films.
In the sequel, it is revealed that she was afraid of the jungle, but she overcame it in order to save Mowgli.
Shanti knows better peeling tricks than Mowgli.
Shanti was also based on an unnamed woman that briefly appears in "The Spring Running" from The Second Jungle Book.
Despite not being a feral child, Shanti somehow can speak to the other animals.
The name Shanti means "peace" in Hindi, reflecting Shanti's desire for a safe and peaceful life.
Her signature song, "My Own Home", heavily suggests that she will become Mowgli's wife in the future.
While Mowgli and Shanti share romantic feelings for each other, their future marriage is merely hinted at in the song "My Own Home."
Shanti's bindi suggests that she is Hindu.
Not counting song lyrics, humming, a brief giggle, and a minor gasp, Shanti does not have any dialogue in the original film.
She is completely absent from the 2016 live-action remake, The Jungle Book, as in this film, Mowgli does not go to the man-village as Shere Khan dies instead of running away, thus ensuring the Jungle is safe.
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