Many years ago, there lived a little girl name Sunimaya, the daughter of a hill shepherd, Mahan Singh, and his wife, Dahn Jita. The three had a very happy life together. In the summertime, they wandered with their flocks over the high mountain pastures of Dhor, and in the wintertime before the snows came to close the pass, they came down to their stone house in the river valley of Neeshee to plant corn.
When Sunimaya was ten years old, her mother Dhan Jita fell sick and died. For many days, Sunimaya grieved. Mahn Singh did not know what to do to comfort her. Finally, he decided to marry a widow whose husband had left her with a girl Sunimaya’s age and a boy a few years younger. ‘In this way,’ thought Mahn Sing, ‘my little girl will have a sister and a mother, and I will have a wife and a son.’
After they had lived together for a while, Mahan Singh knew he would have a difficult time caring for such a large family. His little flock of goats and sheep was too small.
There was no money for clothes or food. One day he told his wife: “I will go into the army so that I can send money home every year. Then, when you have bought enough animals and land to feed us all, I will come home to stay.”
Now the stepmother treated Sunimaya as well as she did her own children while Mahn Singh was at home, but as soon as he left for the army, she began to treat Sunimaya differently. She made her stay up all night to guard the flock after working all day in the fields. She gave her husks to eat instead of good rice she cooked for her own children. But Sunimaya never complained.
One day the stepmother sent Sunimaya into the jungle to bring fodder for the animals, but she would not give her a khukri, a large hunting knife, to cut the leaves or a tumpline to carry them home. Sunimaya went into the jungle and wept. When some snakes came by and asked her why she was crying, she told them what her stepmother expected of her.
“Stop crying, Sunimaya,” said the snakes. “We will crawl up into the trees and cut some branches for you, if you will gather the leaves. Then, when we have a good load, you can make us into a tumpline and we will help you carry the fodder home. Set us down gently, so we won’t get hurt, and we will slip back into the forest.”
Sunimaya gathered the leaves as fast as the snakes threw them down from the trees, and she piled them into a big bundle.
When the stepmother saw the load of fodder Sunimaya had brought home, she was very puzzled. ‘I will have to think of something she cannot do at all,’ she thought to herself. “Then I can send her away for disobeying me, and her father will not blame me when he returns.”
Sometime later, the stepmother gave Sunimaya a sieve and told her to bring some water from the spring. Sunimaya knew this would be a hopeless task, but she went to the spring with the sieve as she had been told. She tried and tried to make the sieve hold water. She cupped her hands under it, lined it with leaves, she filled the holes with clay. But always, before she reached home, the sieve would be empty. Finally she sat down on a stone near the spring and wept.
Some ants came out of the ground and asked Sunimaya why she was weeping.
“My stepmother expects me to carry water in this,” she moaned, holding up the sieve so they could see it. “What shall I do?”
“Stop crying,” pleaded the ants when they heard her story. “We will help you. Each of us will sit over a hole in the sieve and you can fill it with water. When you get home, pour the water very slowly in your storage jar. Then tap the sieve lightly with stick and we will fall to the ground and come back to the spring.”
Sunimaya was grateful to the ants and did just as she was told. When the stepmother saw the water in the storage jar, she was surprised and annoyed. ‘This girl is too clever,’ thought the wicked woman. ‘I shall have to find a more dangerous task.’
But Sunimaya solved all of them mysteriously. But when the stepmother was sure her simple tricks would never work, she thought of the most danger ones, and said, “I need a champa flower for some medicine. Climb atop a tree in the mountains, and get me one.”
Sunimaya walked to the base of the mountain that rose steeply behind her village and looked for a way to climb to the high shelf where the champa flowers grew. There was no path and the cliff was so dangerous that if anyone fell from there, there was no chance of life. After a few hours she gave up in despair. A big vulture, seeing her distress, swept don and landed on the ground in front of her.
“Oh, Little Sister, why are you so upset?” he asked, hopping nearer.
Sunimaya told him as well as she could between sobs. He gave her a ride on his back, and helped her pick the flowers.
As they were flying back, Sunimaya saw travellers moving up and down the narrow trail. One of the travelers was a soldier coming up the trail with two porters, each carrying a load of things. Suddenly she recognized him! He was her own father coming home on leave, with wonderful presents for everyone.
“Oh, Ba! Ba” she shouted, jumping and waving her arms to catch his attention. The man recognized his daughter, and their happiness knew no bound.
On the way home, Sunimaya told him everything about the wicked stepmother. The man drove the wicked woman out of his home, and started living happily with his daughter.
(A Nepali folktale adapted for children by Mahesh Paudyal)