Page 138 - Musings 2020

9

Flowers

Chandra Prakash 2017A2PS0910P and Dimple 2017D2TS1229P

Long ago, in a small town by the forests and mountains there lived a rich merchant with his
beautiful wife. They could’ve had all the happiness of life but their own child. They tried all
the remedies they could but for no use. One day they heard about a falling star, which one
might see only once in a lifetime, is believed to grant any wish if prayed with heart. When it
arrived the couple asked, “if only they could have just one child”. Sometime later the woman
gave birth to a baby girl whose skin was rusty brown and wrinkled, she looked awful and old.
Maybe that was their fate. But her parents happily accepted her and named her Shubhangi,
meaning a very beautiful girl.

As she grew up, they would kiss her, caress her, play with her, and tell her beautiful stories.
And taught her about accepting whatever God has given them. Soon when her mother died of
some disease, his father got remarried. Her stepmother was a very wicked woman. She would
force Shubhangi to do the hardest job through the house when her own daughter would do
nothing all day long, though she was very beautiful, she was just as spoiled as her mother.

Shubhangi was yet a daughter to the house until his father lived, afterward, her stepmother
turned her into a full-time maid. She tricked her father into leaving nothing for Shubhangi,
but everything for herself and her own daughter. As time passed both girls grew into women,
her stepsister got married to a handsome man in the town, but no one would marry Shubhangi
because of her ugly and old look, none of the men would even look at her.

Years passed that she served her stepmother so that she can have food and shelter. On one
evening, her stepmother passed away, making her homeless since her stepsister got the house.
It was very hard to make a living afterward, she would have to go to the mountains and pick
beautiful flowers to sell in the town, sometimes in other nearby towns just to keep alive, she
didn’t have a place so she slept in some mountain cave. Even in these petty situations, she
was seen to smile. When she felt alone in the nights, she would sing herself the lullabies that
her mother told her and look at twinkling stars. When in town, she would talk to kids, tell
them stories, she almost knew every kid by their names. She learned to keep happy in herself.
She never complained about anything.

One day when she was picking flowers, she came across a very ugly one that no one would
want, she caressed them, smelt them, their fragrance was like she had never known before,
she didn’t pick them though, cause no men would want to give ugly flowers to their women,
she had sympathy for the flowers. She came daily to smell the flowers, watered them, and felt
them like her very own.

As the years went by the girl’s fate started to change, as she became young and beautiful by
the fragrance of those flowers, as they were very magical. It was like nature had turned
around its clocks. Soon a very handsome man married her and they lived happily ever after.

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