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Once a small flower bloomed on the Mother plant. It was different from the other flowers. From the moment it opened its eyes, it kept staring at the sun, not batting its eyelids, with love, with bated breath.

On the slope of the hill, opposite the last house of the village stood a thicket of sunflowers. It grew from a seed thrown by somebody who had passed by a long time ago. It was delightful to see the big leaves on stems as high as eight feet and flowers with brown seeds crowned by yellow petals looking like small suns, swaying in the breeze.

In the morning the sunflowers will wake up and yawn and look this way and that way. Mother plant would say, ‘Children, look up, do you see the sun’. They will raise their heads. Mother told them they should keep looking at the sun as it went slowly across the sky and set in the west. But the flowers would also look now and then at the vehicles that passed by, children playing in the street, cows grazing about and dogs that roamed around.

Once a small flower bloomed on the Mother plant. It was different from the other flowers. From the moment it opened its eyes, it kept staring at the sun, not batting its eyelids, with love, with bated breath. The day after it bloomed there came along a naughty boy who jumped at the flower exclaiming ‘O a sunflower!’. The spotted cow that was facing the other side was startled, the boy fell, the thorns on the plant cut his hand and he ran away. Poor flower sprained its neck and it began to cry as the pain was unbearable.

Humans and cows didn’t hear the flower crying, big ears often miss small voices. But the plant, the wind and the lemongrass that stood nearby heard the cry of the flower. “It is alright, after a while, the pain will subside” Mother plant consoled the small flower.

“But how will I look at the sun, I am not able to move my neck” the small flower whimpered plaintively. “You can look at the Sun after the sprain is healed” Mother said.

“How can that be? Shouldn’t one look always, will not the Sun go away at night?” the small flower tried to turn its head with a lot of effort. But the pain became excruciating, juice began to ooze out of its neck. “You need not look now, you will break your neck, let the sprain heal, then we will look at the Lord Sun” Mother plant said.

But the small flower could not bear the sorrow. It began to shed tears profusely and turned its bent head slightly to look at the sun.

Sun Lord’s eyes and ears knew everything. If I move west, the flower will not be able to see me at all. The sun remained rooted in the sky without ascending to the high point in the sky.

After a while, the sky looked at the wristwatch of a human passing by and told Sun “It’s past one in the afternoon, should you not go across?” Sun kept looking at the Earth as if it did not hear.

“O Sun, it is getting late, you must go west, can you remain like this?”

“What can I do, I cannot ignore the little flower which is straining so much to look at me” Sun finally replied.

Sky let out a sigh. Somehow, he must send the sun forward before people begin to notice. Sky called a dark cloud and a small wind that were passing by and said something in a hushed voice.

After a while the dark cloud stood covering the sun. The wind went down near the Sunflower plants and told the small flower “O little one, Sun has a headache. He has wetted some white clouds and put them on his forehead. He does not want you to look at him now”. The small sunflower was astounded. “Is it so?”

“Yes, please do not look at the sun for some time”.

They all began to chat about Sun’s headache excitedly. “May be the smoke that rose from the field where they set fire yesterday got to the Sun”.

Wind took some oil from the lemongrass and massaged the flower’s neck.

The small flower started to pray that the Sun should be relieved of its headache.

Seeing the small flower standing with its eyes closed, Sun slowly began to move westward.

Next day the small Sunflower’s sprain got healed and it smiled looking at the Sun in the east. The Sun too gently smiled at the flower. That is how loving people are.

– By Brahmacharini Pranati Swaroopa