Why Is the Sky So High?
The sky was so low many years ago that you could touch it with your fingertips if you stretched up. And there was a hamlet in northern India where the sky was at its lowest, and there an elderly woman lived in a little mud home.
With no relatives or friends remaining, this little elderly lady lived alone. She had no one to talk to and nowhere to go. She thus spent her entire day cleaning her yard and home in order to keep herself occupied.
The land was so dry one scorching summer, before the monsoon, that dust was all over the place—on the trees, in the air, and on the roofs of huts and buildings. People's nostrils and throats were clogged with dust, causing them to choke, sneeze, and cough. The sky itself suffered too; it was so close to the earth that it sneezed and coughed up dust as it climbed.
There was dust all around the elderly woman's cottage. She kept using her broom to sweep the small cottage. She even swept her front yard and the outside of her cottage. However, as she continued to sweep, the dust continued to swirl about her.
The old woman was cleaning up so much dust that it was starting to choke the sky. The dust lodged in its throat, tickling its nose and causing it to sneeze—a huge, thunderous sneeze that rocked the earth. In a state of terror, many covered their heads and fled inside. But the elderly woman continued to sweep.
Huge raindrops started to fall on the parched land because the dust got into the sky's eyes and caused them to get wet. Before a massive raindrop landed on her head, the elderly woman hardly noticed.
With a scowl, the elderly lady wiped the raindrop from the sky. However, one raindrop followed another, and soon her beautiful, tidy yard was blanketed in droplets.
The elderly grandmother was furious about this. She screamed at the sky, telling it to quit pouring rain on her tidy yard.
But the poor old sky, its eyes so full of dust, could not stop raining.
Eventually, the elderly woman became so enraged that she took her broom and struck the heavens with it. With another enormous sneeze, the heavens sprang out of her path. However, the elderly woman repeatedly struck it with her broom.
At last, the sky became tired of the dust and the old woman's broom strokes. Coughing and sneezing, thundering and pouring, the sky rose and rose until the dust could no longer reach it and vowed never to descend.
This is a beautiful folk tae from India. If you want your kids to learn more about India we recommend that you buy India Map for Kids from our store. It comes as a combo with flashcards to learn a bit more about states of India.
