Outstanding Stories » New Beginning

“New Beginning” is one of the outstanding stories (sub-junior) of the second biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Shirsha Banerjee, Apeejay School, Salt Lake, Kolkata, India.

New Beginning

Srishti is a seven year old girl. She stays with her father in an interior village where people mostly believe in girl-boy inequality. A girl child is treated as a burden. They have a typical mind-set that girls are born to do household chores, get married and take care of their kids. Most of the girls in that village are not allowed to go to the school for education. But, Srishti’s father is an open-minded person and to him his daughter means the whole world. As Srishti lost her mother at a very tender age, her father plays the dual role of mom and dad. A strong bond of love exists between the father and daughter.

One day when Srishti was returning from school, she noticed a strange thing. She saw a grey coloured fluffy cloud drifting downwards. She was looking at the grey sky. As the grey fluffy cloud came towards her, she saw a little girl sitting on the cloud. Srishti was astonished to see the little girl sitting on the cloud. The girl came down from the grey cloud and smiled at Srishti. Srishti was totally surprised and amazed to see the cloud girl. The little girl came to Srishti and said, “Hello dear! What is your name? Can we be friends?” Srishti was happy and excited and asked, “What is your name little girl? Where do you stay? And why are you sitting on cloud?”

Little girl answered, “My name is Meghla. I stay in the land of clouds. I belong to the Nimbus family.” From geography teacher, Srishti learned about Nimbus clouds bringing heavy rain. In Srishti’s village, due to lack of rainfall, lakes and ponds are drying up, causing crops to fail and cattle to languish. Srishti immediately told, “I will be your friend, but you have to keep one request. If you are ready to keep my request, I will become your best friend.” Meghla is very lonely and has no friends. From the land of clouds, she watches how Srishti plays hide and seek, lock and key and many more interesting games with her friends. Meghla quickly replied, “I am ready to help you dear. Tell me what help do you want from me?” Srishti started saying, “It was not long time back, when the fields in this village were green all year round. To the villagers, main source of living is farming. But, due to lack of rain, it is becoming difficult to make a living from farming.

Lot of people are moving to cities to do some other jobs and earn money for living. Being the member of Nimbus family, I prayed, “Please bring rain in my village. Please do something, so that it rains and the fields become green with paddy shoots.” To bring rain in Srishti’s village, Meghla told her as she is a kid, she has no power to bring rain. Rain fairy can resolve Srishti’s problem. Meghla took her to the land of clouds and introduced Srishti to the Rain fairy. Listening to Srishti’s problem, the fairy said, “My child, you people are only responsible for this condition in your village. People in your village are cutting down trees to make furnitures, papers and selling those to market for profit. Don’t you know child, plants help in bringing rain.” Srishti understood the reason behind poor rainfall. After returning to her village, she along with her friends started planting saplings. They not only planted trees to make their village eco-friendly, they also planted Aloe vera plants around the trees to save the trees from termite attack. The trees humidified the air causing rainfall. The rainfall brought smile on the faces of the villagers. To honour Srishti’s effort, the villagers decided to plant saplings to welcome the birth of a female child.