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Character Sketch of Nakoo in the Cricket for the Crocodile by Ruskin Bond

Nakoo is a famous animal character from Ruskin Bond’s story ‘Cricket for the Crocodile’. Since the crocodile Nakoo has been shown an integral part of the ambience and setting of the story, it is better to refer it like a human. Though in the story, he does not speak or converse with other animals and humans, but he is well capable of thinking. He is able to think about what is bad and good for him.


He lives in a shallow river, which is near or adjacent to a playground where often children and their fathers play with other teams. Two prominent teams that often play there are the village and the town team.

Nakoo is often referred as Nakooji by many children and others who come there to play. It means people respected him. But in reality, people feared him. Nakoo is bored with eating fish, he now longs to have juicy human flesh. Often he eyes to grab one or two human fielding near the river. But in the story, we see no such instance that he literally attacked any human in greed. He seems to have patience as his virtue.

Yes…Nakoo is often snubbed by the cricket teams, thus he once rubbed his belly on the pitch and once ate the ball that hit him. In one match, when the bank manager fell asleep on a cot under the shade of a tree, Nakoo too slept below the cot. And when Nakoo got up from sleep and begin crawling up to the river, the cot was being attached to its belly and the manager on it, all were going to the river. That was the most hilarious moment in the story, it indicated that no matter what an animal thinks, it cannot be intelligent as a human.

Nakoo has, like any human, mix of both good qualities and desires and limitations. All the way in the story, Nakoo always looked forward to fulfill his eating aspiration. And there is this one thing that is so common to humans, he wants to rest for as much as possible. He was lazy like any fat man. His basic and flawed personality makes him a readable character in the story. 

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