Surrender

High in the Himalayas, where the air thins and the world feels carved from silence, lived a lantern keeper named Sona. Her job was simple but sacred: each night she climbed the stone steps to the cliffside shrine and lit the great lantern that guided travellers through the mountain passes.
Sona was known for her discipline. She lit the lantern at the exact same moment every evening, no matter the weather. Snowstorms, landslides, thunder — nothing stopped her. She believed that if she faltered even once, the mountain would swallow someone whole.
One winter, a fierce wind began to haunt the cliffs. It howled like a living thing, tearing at her clothes, snuffing out the flame again and again. Sona fought it with everything she had. She shielded the lantern with her body. She relit it with trembling hands. She cursed the wind, begged the wind, battled the wind.
But the harder she fought, the stronger the wind became.
One night, exhausted and bruised, she collapsed beside the unlit lantern.
“I cannot fight you anymore,” she whispered into the darkness.
“If the mountain wants darkness tonight, let it have it.”
She closed her eyes, expecting the cold to take her.
Instead, the wind softened.

It curled around her like a shawl. It lifted her hair gently, almost tenderly. And in that strange, quiet moment, Sona realised something she had never considered:
The wind was not trying to stop her.
It was trying to guide her.
She opened her eyes and saw a faint glow far below — a new path carved by a recent landslide, a path travellers had begun using without her knowing. Her lantern, perched high on the cliff, no longer served them. They needed light in a different place.
The wind had been trying to tell her.
The next night, Sona carried the lantern down the mountain and placed it along the new path. The wind stilled. The flame burned steady. Travellers found their way safely.
From that day on, Sona listened before she acted. She let the wind speak. She let the mountain guide her. She surrendered not out of defeat, but out of alignment.
The villagers later said:
“The lantern keeper learned that surrender is not giving up — it is hearing what the world has been whispering all along.”