Planting A Mango Tree – An Unusual Puppet Story by Athreya,9, Chennai
9 year-old Athreya Arun from Chennai, writes a beautiful story about watching a seed grow into a mango tree.
It was Amrith’s summer vacation and he was so thrilled to spend it with his grandparents at their village.
He always loved to be with his grandpa and he learned to make lots of craft work from him. His grandpa never disappointed him and he made sure to
teach him something new every day.
One day, Amrith’s grandpa taught him to make a puppet using mango seed. Amrith was so excited as he hadn’t seen something like that before. He named the puppet as Joy and wanted to show it to his friends. He took Joy along with him that evening and they played finger puppet with it for a while.
Later, the kids wanted to play cricket and so, they kept Joy on the ground before they started the game.
While playing cricket, the sky suddenly turned dark and started drizzling. The kids were surprised to see the drizzles in summer and rushed back home before it turned out to be a heavy rain.
Amrith reached home in a hurry and realized he left Joy on the ground. He was so upset that he was thinking about it throughout the night.
The next morning he rushed back to the ground looking for Joy, but it got covered up in the wet soil and so Amrith couldn’t find it. He looked around everywhere and was so upset that it was nowhere. His grandpa comforted him and made a similar puppet with a paper.
After few years, Amrith visited his grand parents village again. He enjoyed his grandma’s delicious food and went for a pleasant evening walk around the village.
He rejoiced his childhood memories and walked across the ground where he used to play cricket. He heard a strange sound saying – Welcome Amrith, do you remember me?
Amrith was puzzled to know where the sound was coming from. He looked around but he couldn’t find anyone but a giant mango tree.
Then he understood that the sound is from the tree.
The tree said, “I am Joy. You gave life to me by dropping me in the soil, I am so thankful for that. Now I am giving back lots of fruits, fresh air, shade and I am even the home for lots of birds”.
Hearing this, Amrith was so touched and hugged the tree with love.
From that day on, Amrith realized how plants help us and he made sure that he planted thousands of trees every year. Amrith was so delighted in giving back to nature.
