The Elephant's Petals
Short Story - 'The Elephant's Petals'
Long time back there was an Elephant living in
a forest. The forest had many plants, trees and beautiful flowers covered with
green leaves on its stems.
It was one fine
day, when the Elephant was sitting by the hillside, he was gazing at the sky,
looking at the clouds, stalking by the river, going around the trees and
bushes. He was very happy about being
what he was.
Then suddenly he
saw a flower with beautiful coloured
petals and green leaves all along its body. The flower came near the Elephant,
she was walking around him, stopping
every now and then, looking at the Elephant.
The Elephant was
quite astonished to see the flower looking at him so surprisingly.
He asked the
flower, "What's wrong?"
The flower
replied, "You look funny! You're a funny animal!"
The Elephant was
afflicted by the flower's comments and cried out, "I'm a funny
animal?"
The flower replied
again on and on, "Yes, you're funny!
You haven't got any petals."
The Elephant got furious and replied in an angry
sore, "No, you are funny! You haven't got a trunk."
The flower did
not stop and kept repeating, "Nonsense, I've seen lots of things with
petals and leaves. But I've never seen anything with a trunk!"
Now the Elephant
was very unhappy. He ran down the hill as fast as he could. But he could still
hear the flower shouting: "You're a funny animal. You've got no
petals."
The Elephant was
in sorrow and deliberately thinking as to why did the flower point out to him as a funny animal. Then he had an idea.
"I'll just have to go and find some leaves and petals and stick them all
over myself."
The Flower was
still there upon the hill, thinking about the Elephant. She thought, "Oh
poor Elephant!! Maybe he's run away forever." And that made her very sad.
She wanted to go and look for the Elephant and say him sorry.
The flower slowly
walked down the hill and into the jungle. On the way, she saw a strange little bump. It was covered with leaves and
petals. She thought for a moment, "I've never seen that bump before.
That's a strange bump, it's got little fat legs like an elephant. I must follow
it and find out."
Then the bump
began to run away. And then it fell into the pond. Splash! splash! went the pond.
Groan! groan! went the bump.
The flower
followed the bump and came to the pond, she saw that it was full of petals and
leaves, but there was no bump. And then she saw, there was only the Elephant,
up to his trunk in water.
The Elephant said
in grief, "I don't want petals."
The flower replied,
"That's good, you don't need them." And then she said, "Elephants
are elephants and flowers are flowers."
That made the
Elephant happy and he was pleased to have a friend who enriched the importance
of his existence the way he is as an Elephant forever.
Moral: Do not belittle yourself for what you don't have, instead be proud of what you
already have!!
Reference: Adaptation from Sangam Book Series.
Find more Stories for children:
The Hungry Mouse
Paromita Pramanick ©2018. All Rights Reserved.
No comments: