I don't know if the India that Kipling transmits is the India of his time. But it's a meaningless question. Art, with time, remains more real than the debris left by history: we love and know more about Don Quixote than Charles V. And so the India of Kipling is totally real to me, as are my Indian friends. Except that in Kipling with a touch of the British spirit of its time to, not only control the world, but to make it theirs. If you read the fiction of most of writers from the former countries of the Spanish Empire you will notice that, despite centuries of ancestors living there, they write about nature and natives as if they were something terrible and alien; Kipling instead embrace, and makes us embrace, the whole of India with deep love.Although Disney movies could make you think otherwise, this is a unique book of tales and songs with different protagonists, mostly animals, and certainly not only Mowgli. An exotic book as Bollywood movies are today, with their stories and their dances in between. I loved so much the descriptions of Bagheera, a sensuous shadow of velvet. The jungle so dense and so old. The ocean and the wars to survive in "The white seal." Conflicts fueled by familiar bonds in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," a tale in which I don't think there is really an enemy. The almost supernatural call in "Toomai of the Elephants." The last one, "Her Majesty's servants", I consider it more comical and maybe satirical. It was nice, but I didn't liked so much as the rest.This AmazonClassics Edition has X-Ray, although when I consult the entry for Rann the kite, it gives me instead the description of a place instead of the character. Also, with many exotic terms, some of them are not explained in the X-Ray section. Maybe they are evident for most of the readers but I would liked to have a bit more data. In the end there is a short biography and that's all. There is no intermediary to spoil the fun, with introductions or studies, to read this great book that you can enjoy and learn at any age.