Kiranmala and the Talking Bird

Long ago, three royal children, two brothers named Arun and Barun and their little sister Kiranmala, were set adrift on a river when they were small, through the jealous scheming of others, and their mother was driven away from the palace. A kind old brahmin found the children, pulled them from the water, and raised them as his own in his humble little cottage. They never knew they had been born a prince and princess. They only knew they were loved.

When the children were grown, the good old brahmin passed away. Arun and Barun built a fine house, and there they heard of three great wonders said to lie at the top of a far and dangerous mountain: a tree with leaves of diamond and fruit of gold, a bird that could speak the truth of any matter, and the water of a magic spring that could bring the dead back to life.

“I will fetch them,” said Arun, the eldest, and off he went. But the path up the mountain was guarded by terrible voices that screeched and howled and called the most frightening things, and the rule of that mountain was simple and cruel: whoever turned to look back was turned to stone. Arun climbed bravely, but at last the voices were too much, and he glanced over his shoulder, and in an instant he was grey stone.

When Arun did not return, Barun went after him. And the very same thing befell him. Two brothers, two grey stones upon the mountainside.

Then Kiranmala set out. Her brothers had told her to stay safely home, but she would not sit and wait while they were lost. Up the dreadful mountain she climbed, and the voices shrieked at her, closer and crueller than ever, telling her to turn, to look, to give up. Kiranmala gritted her teeth and fixed her eyes on the path ahead. She did not look back. Not once. Not for anything.

And so she reached the very top, where the diamond tree glittered and the talking bird sat waiting. She filled a flask at the magic spring, and she sprinkled its water over the field of grey stones below. And every stone softened and stirred and stood up alive, her two brothers among them, and a great crowd of other brave souls who had failed where she had not.

Kiranmala carried the diamond tree, and the magic water, and the talking bird home in triumph. And it was the talking bird, in the end, who flew to the king and told him the whole truth, that these three were his own lost children, set adrift long ago. And so a scattered family was made whole again, all because one girl walked up a screaming mountain and refused to turn around.