In this ongoing collaborative series, young writers around the world revisit stories important to their childhoods. Like many of the tales that shape our lives, these pieces flow into each other, creating a narrative that links contributors across continents and cultures. You can read the previous stories here, here, here, here, and here. Remember to come back to KidSpirit for the next installment, and don’t miss the accompanying videos that bring these young voices to life.

How everyone wished they had been together as a family all the time, as Nani Jaan (my grandmother) told our troupe of cousins her favourite folktale by the crackling fireplace.

The folktale tells the tale of a 14th-century king, Jam Tamachi, who once visited a fishing village in Sindh by the Kalri (Keenjhar) Lake.

In the village lived a tribe of fisherman, one of whom had a daughter named Noori. When everyone in the village got together to greet the great king, Noori stood out to him, and it was love at first sight. Eventually Jam Tamachi proposed to Noori and married her. She joined his troupe of six wives, becoming the seventh wife.

When Noori, the humble fisher woman, arrived at the palace, she was completely out of place. The wives would plot and plan to poison their husband’s heart against his new prized wife. Noori was not deterred and remained steadfast in marriage, not forgetting for a moment where she came from and belonged. Noori was the epitome of humility and stayed true to her roots even after embracing life in the great palace of a king. She always ignored the taunts of her husband’s other wives and stayed devoted to him his whole life.

Humility is perhaps the most important value any individual can possess, and my grandmother always emphasized this by telling us this folktale. Memories never leave one’s mind — stories we retell are testament to that fact. Noori now has a shrine devoted to her in the middle of Keenjhar Lake in Sindh, where she and Jam Tamachi met. She is buried there as a symbol of her humility. She never forgot where she came from.