Written by Urvi Shah

A little mango tree begins to grow in a vast grassy field where no other tree grows. He is called Ian. Ian has many friends in the birds and animals that visit him and the plants that grow around him. However, he is not very happy. A questions troubles him. A question he cannot seem find an answer to. “Why am I here?” he asks his friends.

His friends try to give him an answer but none of their answers satisfy him. As the seasons pass, Ian unable to find an answer to this question, grows despondent.

In the story, the seemingly strange question that Ian asks, is a question many of us ask as well. The answer too, arrives, very often, when something within us shifts. Sometimes this shift is aided by external circumstances just as it is for Ian.

HOW TO USE THIS STORY?
Teachers, parents and adults may read aloud this story to children. Alternatively, it may be given to the children to read themselves depending on their abilities. The child, thereafter may be asked to recount or draw their favourite part.

Please feel free to use the story creatively along with art, music, puppets etc, as you are inspired, albeit, without changing or distorting the purity of intent.

HOW THIS STORY CAME TO BE?
I wrote this story keeping in mind Ian, a very special child I had the good fortune of teaching. I remember meeting Ian in the year 2018 when he was 6. As soon as I looked into his eyes, there was for me, a spontaneous and instantaneous feeling of knowing. Over the years, as his teacher, my bond with him grew and deepened. And on his 8th birthday, I gifted this story to him.

Ian loved the mango tree (maybe still does!). And, one day in class, this wonderful little boy of 7 told me, “I wish I could just sit on the mango tree and look up at the night sky and stars all by myself.” So earnest was his wish and his love for the mango tree, that he and the mango tree seemed one to me.

Ian has a heart of love. And so do we all. I hope like Ian in the story, we too discover this heart through which flows the unending and relentless current of pure love.

FOR WHOM?
The story is for children (age 6+) and adults.