Tabaqui

""Shere Khan, the great one, has shifted his hunting grounds, or so he has told me."

- Tabaqui Tabaqui is a jackal and Shere Khan's sidekick in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, thus making him the secondary antagonist, replacing Kaa in some versions.

He is a scavenger who is despised by the wolves and has a tendency to fawn on Shere Khan and greatly hates being insulted. However, he is very cowardly and usually prefers flee to fight. He is also known to be a liar, so Mowgli is often informed by Bagheera and Baloo that Tabaqui is not to be trusted.

He was originally set to appear in the 1967 Disney film as a minor antagonist and voiced by James MacDonald, but he was deleted. However, he did appear in the 1994 live-action film, but is portrayed as a human instead of a jackal.

Tabaqui also appears in other animated films and TV adaptations of The Jungle Book, but in most of them he appears as a hyena, not a jackal. In Chuck Jones' made-for-TV special adaptation of the book, the way Tabaqui is animated gives him a striking resemblance to Wile E. Coyote.

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
Tabaqui serves as a supporting antagonist in the 1994 film Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.

He was portrayed by Anirudh Agarwal.

In the film, Tabaqui is portrayed as a human, serving as the henchman of Buldeo, who serves as the right-hand man to William Boone. When William discovers a jeweled dagger that Mowgli is in possession of, Buldeo and Tabaqui plot with William and his friend Lieutenant Wilkins to convince Mowgli into taking them to Monkey City where there is more treasure. When Mowgli refuses, they decide to kidnap him instead.

The attempt to capture Mowgli fails as well so they kidnap William's former girlfriend and Mowgli's love interest Kitty Brydon, along with her father Colonel Brydon, and threaten their lives unless Mowgli cooperates. Mowgli agrees to take them to the city, as long as they survive the dangerous jungle.

The next morning, Sergeant Harley, one of William's men, sinks in quicksand when attempting to catch Mowgli and the group proceeds through the jungle, supervised by Mowgli. Later that day, Tabaqui aggressively confronts Mowgli atop some cliffs and tries to throw him off the edge. Mowgli fights back, only to be pummeled and overpowered. Tabaqui nearly crushes Mowgli with a small boulder but Mowgli recovers quickly and kicks Tabaqui in the groin. This causes Tabaqui to lose his balance and under the weight of the boulder, he stumbles backwards and ends up screaming as he falls off the cliff, meeting his death near the waterfall.