What traditions do you have for celebrating your birthday? What do you like to do when it’s raining outside?

Story Transcript:

Avanti was the zookeeper of Pitara zoo. There were many, many animals in Pitara, but Avanti’s best friend was Ballu, the bear. Ballu was big, brown and strong. On his fourth birthday, Avanti organised a little party for Ballu.

“Ballu, can you blow out all the candles at once?” Avanti asked. “Of course!” said Ballu. He filled his chest with air. He huffed and puffed and puffed and huffed and went “WHOOSH!”

The blast of air blew the candles out. Then rising up, it crashed into the clouds in the sky. And all of a sudden, there was was a roar of thunder and it started to rain.

“Hey, it’s raining fish,” Avanti shouted.Ballu looked around with wonder. Then he picked up a huge basket and ran around collecting fish as they fell from the sky. Every time the basket filled, he dropped the fish in a little pond and ran back for more.

Then, as he was rushing for the tenth time to the pond, he turned back. The water level had risen and he could see that Avanti was scared.

Ballu came back quickly, picked Avanti up and placed her on his shoulders. Avanti put her arms around Ballu’s neck and thanked him. Soon, the clouds disappeared and the sun came out. It was bright and cheerful once again.

“I will never again ask you to blow the candles out,” said Avanti. “Why?”asked Ballu. “Who knows? Next time it might start raining frogs,” Avanti said and the two friends started laughing.

THE END

Creative Commons Story Attribution Text: The Day It Rained Fish (English), written by Ramendra Kumar, illustrated by Delwyn Remedios, published by Pratham Books (© Pratham Books, 2015) under a CC BY 4.0 license on StoryWeaver. Read, create and translate stories for free at https://storyweaver.org.in/