As it is with all stories this story also began Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a far off land, there lived a king in a land that was filled with sunflowers. The land was called, the land of ….yes, sunflowers!! You will find sunflowers everywhere, in fields, in the gardens, by the roadside, any patch of land that had some space to offer people grew sunflowers, unlike these days where any space is occupied by buildings.
These sunflowers were no ordinary sunflowers. They were the best in the country, in the whole universe. Their petals were a shining, bright yellow and each sunflower was as big as dinner plates. In fact, if you were a bird and flew overhead, they would look like big golden discs to you. Needless to say, there were lots of birds that used to come and eat the sunflower seeds. Birds love them, you see. The royal garden also had sunflowers amongst other flowers. People loved and cared for every single sunflower that grew in their land.
The people of sunflower land were like sunflowers –bright and cheerful and jolly and did I say it before? They loved sunflowers!!. The king was very jolly person and so was his son, the prince of sunflower land, who was also very jolly. Overall, they were all a very jolly lot. They used to sell sunflower oil, the flowers themselves, cook their food with sunflower oil. The women folk applied them as face packs and no wonder everyone in sunflower land were very healthy and happy.
The sunflowers had a life of their own. After their morning ritual of turning the face to the sun, they used to talk amongst themselves – “good morning, how do you do? Nice weather isn’t it? oooh! I so love the breeze today,” and so on and so forth. When you walk by, it seemed like they are just nodding to the breeze, but actually they were carrying out a conversation.
It so happened, by some oversight, there was a patch of land that didn’t have any plants at all on it. Nobody knows why this happened. One day, some people passing by looked at the dry patch of land and thought, “oh no! This won’t do” and so they immediately rushed and grabbed handfuls of sunflower seeds (they always had loads of seeds handy) and scattered them all over the land.
It rained, first slowly, plop, plop, plop went the drops and then faster and faster and the land became wet. Over time, the seeds sprouted and the stalks began to grow. Soon there was a bright yellow burst of sunflowers all over the patch of land.
And there - Right in the middle of the patch grew a sunflower, which stood taller than the others. When it opened its petals, it was a bright…..GREEN!!!
Now who’s heard of a green sunflower? Not me and bet you didn’t either. The other flowers gossiped amongst themselves. “Just look at greenie here, how different, she’s not one of us, she doesn’t belong, let’s ignore her, she’s so out of place, what an awful color, look at us and look at her and so on and on it went.
The green sunflower was very sad to hear all this, its petals drooping. “What’s wrong with being green?” she thought, “I am just as jolly as anyone else. I can’t HELP being a different color and said so to the other sunflowers, but nobody cared to listen and none of the other sunflowers would be friends with her.
That didn’t stop the people of sunflower land from caring for the green sunflower. They loved and watered it and cared for it as much as they did to the others, though they did puzzle over its color at times.
There came the next bit of excitement in sunflower land. The sunflower prince was getting married to a beautiful princess of the neighboring kingdom. The neighboring kingdom was called rose land and predictably, they grew roses. They had a king called the rose king and a bee-yoo-ti-ful princess called the rose princess. The princess was not only bee-yoo-ti-ful but reputed to be very jolly. There was a lot of whispering amongst the people and birds and the bees and the animals and the trees. Everyone thought it would be the perfect match. The royal family from rose land came to visit the sunflower land. Amid all the blowing of trumpets and hugs and kisses, the families embraced each other.
The sunflower prince and the rose princess took one look at each other and fell instantly in love.
The fathers had their own issues however. The princess’ father (rose king) wanted to know what the sunflower king had to offer in his kingdom.
Sunflower king: I can give you the best of gold and diamonds.
Rose King: Pooh! We have loads of them already. In fact, the walls of all our houses are studded with them in our land.
Sunflower king: I can give you pearls and silver.
Rose King: Pooh! We have so much silver and pearls that we don’t know where to keep them.
And on and on it went. The sunflower king offered the best of riches but the princess father (rose king) was unimpressed and boasted that whatever sunflower land had, rose kingdom had it too. After a lot of arguing back and forth, the sunflower king began to speak of the land’s rich produce, that they had the reddest of tomatoes, the best of brinjals, the amazing apples and so on. The Rose king just said, you guessed it, pooh! and said that rose kingdom had them too.
Then the king spoke about the beautiful sunflowers, their bright yellow color and how they were the size of dinner plates. The rose king said “Big deal!! What’s so special about your sunflowers? All it takes is a few seeds and we’ll have them too. But the king didn’t stop there. He went on about the beautiful sunflowers, their bright yellow color and how they were the size of dinner plates. The rose king thought for a moment and said, “Okay, this is getting a little silly. Let’s take a tour around your place and see what you have to offer.”
So the royal chariot was brought out and the two kings (sunflower and rose), the princess and the prince (rose and sunflower) all took a tour around the land. They passed through the golden discs of sunflowers. They came to the spot where the green sunflower grew.
All this while, the Prince and the Princess did not utter a word to each other, all they did was to steal glances at each other. Then the rose princess suddenly glanced up and cried out Stop! Stop!! Stop right now!! Stop right here!!
They stopped.
The princess rubbed her eyes and squeaked, “Is that a green sunflower?
Sunflower prince: “yeah, it is…well…”
Rose princess: “Guess what my favorite color is?? Guess? Guess? Its green!!!. I love green. I have loads of green dresses, green jewels, I wear green all the time, my room is painted green, my bedspreads are all green, I eat broccoli for breakfast, I eat spinach…ooh! I sooo love green…
Sunflower prince: “Yeah me too. I love you….I mean I love green too.”
Rose princess: and I’ve never seen such a bee-yoo-ti-ful green sunflower before.
Rose princess then tells the prince: “You know what? Let’s get married right away. Let’s take this bee-yoo-ti-ful green sunflower and plant it in our royal garden, just outside my bedroom window, right away!!.
The sunflower prince couldn’t say anything except nod. He got what he loved the most.
The fathers didn’t have anything much to say after that too, except nod their approval.
So took the green sunflower and planted it in the royal garden. The sunflower prince and the rose princess (now officially called the sunflower princess) had a grand wedding and an even grander honeymoon and like it is with most stories, they all lived happy ever after.
What happened to the other sunflowers?
They had learnt their lesson-never to make fun of anyone different.
Note: This story was created by me in a matter of hours as part of an assignment and presented, when I attended an Indo-Swedish workshop at Kathalaya (a story telling organization in Bangalore). After the presentation and the compliments I got on my story and presentation, I felt bee-yoo-ti-ful…just like a certain sunflower :)
