The Coconut That Wanted to Be a Jackfruit

The Envious Coconut

In a garden in Jorhat, there grew two trees side by side — a coconut palm, tall and slender, and a jackfruit tree, wide and generous with shade. On the coconut palm hung a small, round coconut named Nari. On the jackfruit tree hung a massive, bumpy jackfruit named Kothal.

Nari was unhappy.

"Look at you," she said to Kothal every morning. "You are the biggest fruit in the whole garden. People stop and stare at you. Children point and say, 'Look how big!' Nobody says that about a coconut."

Kothal, who was a gentle giant, said, "But Nari, you are perfectly round. I am covered in bumps."

"Bumps are interesting," said Nari. "Round is boring."

Nari's Attempts

Nari tried everything to make herself bigger. She drank extra rainwater until she felt bloated. She asked the sun to shine on her longer. She even tried puffing herself up by holding her breath — which, for a coconut, is not easy.

Nothing worked. She stayed small and round while Kothal grew bigger every week, his bumpy green skin stretching and swelling until he was the size of a pillow.

"It's not fair," Nari grumbled to the mynah bird who sat on her palm frond. "Why can't I be big?"

The mynah cocked her head. "Why do you want to be big?"

"Because big is important," said Nari.

The mynah laughed — a bright, chattery laugh. "Oh, Nari. You have no idea what you are, do you?"

The Monsoon Test

That June, the monsoon arrived with a fury. Winds howled across Jorhat, bending trees and rattling windows. Rain fell so hard it sounded like drums on a tin roof. The coconut palm swayed and danced, bending almost to the ground — but her flexible trunk snapped right back. Nari held on tight, her hard shell protecting her from every raindrop.

Poor Kothal was not so lucky. He was so big and heavy that the wind pulled at him mercilessly. His branch groaned. Water pooled in his bumpy skin. And on the third night of the storm — crack — Kothal's branch broke, and he tumbled to the ground with a thud.

"Kothal!" cried Nari. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," said Kothal from the mud. "A little bruised. But this always happens to us big ones. We fall sooner."

The Discovery

After the storm, the gardener's daughter came outside. She picked up Kothal and carried him to the kitchen — he was too heavy for one hand. Then she reached up for Nari with the other.

In the kitchen, something wonderful happened. The girl cracked Nari open. Inside, Nari discovered she carried sweet water — cool, refreshing coconut water that the girl drank with a smile. And beneath that, she had rich, white coconut meat that the girl grated into a curry.

Kothal was delicious too — his golden pods were sweet and fragrant. But Nari realised something she had never understood before: she had water inside her. Kothal didn't. She could quench thirst on a hot day. She could flavour rice. She could make oil, make milk, make chutney. She could do a hundred things Kothal couldn't.

"I was so busy wanting to be big," Nari whispered, "that I forgot to look at what was inside me."

The Garden's Wisdom

When the next batch of fruits grew on the coconut palm and the jackfruit tree, the older fruits passed down the story. Don't wish to be another fruit, they said. Every fruit has something special inside — something no other fruit carries. The coconut has water. The jackfruit has golden sweetness. The mango has sunshine. The banana has comfort.

And in that garden in Jorhat, no coconut ever envied a jackfruit again — because they finally understood that the best thing you can be is exactly what you already are.

The end.