Akbar-Birbal – Birbal’s Execution – {Ep.212} – Stories From India – Podcast

Today’s story is an Akbar-Birbal one about when Akbar tries to have Birbal and Tansen executed. No points for guessing that as usual, Birbal finds a way out!

Welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

Before we start today’s story let me give you a quick introduction in case this is your very first Akbar and Birbal story.

Akbar, and Birbal were real characters from History. Their stories are set in medieval India, most of which was ruled by Emperor Akbar, nearly 500 years ago. Birbal was a minister in Akbar’s court, in his capital city of Agra. Agra looked rather different back then, without the Taj Mahal. But it was the administrative center of practically the whole country!

To administer things effectively, Akbar relied on his ministers. And amongst the lot – the one he relied on the most was Birbal. Birbal’s primary function was commander of a section of the army but that’s not all. He did a lot more than just order soldiers around – he was the intellectual guru in Akbar’s court – the one who could answer any question, the one who could solve any mystery, the one who could pull a fluffle of rabbits out of a teensy weensy hat. 

Now in this court, there were other ministers too. They did their jobs, but no one ever did anything smarter than Birbal. No one outdid him in any way.

And that is exactly what Akbar’s wife was telling him. Let’s just call her begum, which in that Empire was a title to call the Mrs.

“No one ever outwits Birbal. Ever” Begum said.

“I know, it’s awesome isn’t it?” Akbar replied to her.

“No one. Including you” she added

That stung. It completely reversed Akbar’s opinion. “Hey now, Begum. You don’t mean to claim Birbal is smarter than me, do you?”

“Judge for yourself, your highness,” Begum replied. “Back in episode 22, he tricked you and embarrassed you in front of the whole court, when he was cooking khichadi – both metaphorically and literally”

Akbar realized this was actually true. And it had been a deliberate action from Birbal. All Akbar was trying to do was to execute one of his soldiers to avoid paying him some money. Was that too much to ask, as Emperor?

Akbar could not shake off the discomfort he felt in retrospect – did Birbal think himself to be smarter than Akbar? To add fuel to the flames, there was something else going on at that time. Some of his ministers were nominating a successor for Birbal’s position. You see, the others were a bit jealous of all the favor that Birbal received. And Birbal wasn’t one of them. They would have liked one of their own people in that position. They had nominated Tansen. And the way they kept raising his profile in Akbar’s presence made that clear. There was the time in yesterday’s court where people clapped a lot harder than usual at Tansen’s recital.

You see Tansen was quite a gifted musician. His voice could sometimes light flames and could sometimes make it rain. Quite a superpower if your country is experiencing a drought, or if you’re just too lazy to light all those lamps one by one. But the ministers emphasized a different aspect of Tansen’s skills – he could think outside the Bachs. Which didn’t make a lot of sense to Akbar given the composer hadn’t been born yet.

After some thinking Akbar hit on a solution for this complicated problem. He’d pose Birbal his toughest challenge yet, and he’d also see if Tansen had the smarts.

The next day, he summoned them both. 

“Birbal, Tansen, I have a very important task for you both. Take this sealed letter to the Emperor of Russia”.

Tansen gladly agreed, but Birbal asked a few questions first. Why couldn’t the usual messenger go? And why did it need both Birbal and Tansen?

The way Akbar explained it – it was a very important message to his sometimes-friend and sometimes-rival Emperor. Akbar didn’t trust anyone else to do the job. And the contents of the message were important enough that sending a single minister might be perceived as disrespectful when the Emperor of Russia opened the letter.

That seemed satisfactory, so both Birbal and Tansen said their goodbyes to their families, packed their travel backpacks, got their best horses and began the long journey.

It took weeks, as you can imagine, given 16th century technology, road infrastructure, and cartography were fairly limited. They ran out of water, but then Tansen’s skills came in handy. All he had to do was to sing a little verse or two for a quick bit of rainwater.

But they realized they had finally made it when they saw a bunch of reversed characters in the text on signposts, mainly reversed R’s and N’s.

They made it to the capital city, which was not named Moscow, and which was located in a fortress not named the Kremlin. They asked for an audience with the Emperor who was not named Putin.

They were given a token and told to wait, which they did. The Emperor of Russia was receiving many guests. And he was rotating through all the waiting people. He’d talk to one distressed citizen – whom he’d reassure about how their country was actually very strong, and to take heart from their nation’s unbridled success. Then if he didn’t like the distressed citizen’s reaction – he’d cast them in jail. Then he’d talk to one political rival about national policy matters and then cast them in jail, then he’d talk to one of his marketing managers about foreign investment forecasts and then if didn’t like what he saw – cast them in jail. And then he’d receive a message from a foreign kingdom, and if he didn’t like the message cast the messengers in jail. Then he’d go back to the distressed citizens queue again. Maybe he could have been more efficient by simply throwing everyone in jail right away. But he wouldn’t, because he genuinely took pleasure from seeing the panicked expression on all their faces.

Birbal and Tansen were finally shown in. The Emperor sat on a throne and in front of him was a spot marked “Stand here” There was also some construction happening just around it, so Birbal and Tansen couldn’t actually stand there.

Pardon the appearance and don’t mind the construction equipment, The Emperor screamed at them over the loud noise of the jackhammers.

It was impossible to hear what the Emperor had said. But luckily for them the construction crew decided to take 5 just then.

“All that construction noise is driving me crazy” The Emperor of Russia told them. “But what can I do? I need that trapdoor constructed, it’ll save me a lot of time and money. Labor shortages all around. I’m always running out of people – it’s impossible to get anything done. But let’s talk about you gentlemen – I see you come from the land of plenty – plenty of people that is. What does Akbar have to say? It’s been a long while since I played golf with him, and beat him with a huge margin”

Tansen began speaking to say that actually Akbar had beaten him, not the other way around, but Birbal quickly poked him in the ribs and interrupted and handed over the letter.

The Emperor of Russia didn’t take it personally. But had a servant open it for him. “It pays to be paranoid,” he explained.

Then when his servant cleared the letter by not dying of Anthrax poisoning and not having the letter explode in his face, the Emperor picked up the letter and read it.

He was a little disappointed. “I was going to throw you in jail, but it says here that Akbar has asked for you two to be executed. Oh well – so be it. Maybe it’ll break the monotony”

The Emperor signaled his guards and they quickly surrounded Birbal and Tansen, spears drawn.

Birbal and Tansen were surprised. Tansen was practically weeping. “Cut it out,” the Emperor admonished. “Your weeping is causing all the lamps to light up! And it’d daytime”

“I apologize,” Tansen replied “but I’m a composer, your majesty. I can’t be de-composing just yet! I’m too young for that”

The Emperor laughed derisively. “Man up! Maestro. You’re lucky, you’re getting a quick and painless death. I’m not sending you to the Gulag, I should really be charging you and your Emperor for this premium service. Labor shortages are affecting the executioner staffing plans too”

“We’re in treble!” Tansen exclaimed to Birbal when they were being led away to the hangman.

Birbal had stayed silent upto this point, because he was deep in thought. And now he had hit on a solution. Quickly, he whispered his plan to Tansen and Tansen nodded, though not with full confidence. When they reached the gallows, the hangman looked them both over, wondering if they were a size 6 or a size 8? The hangman liked to do a precise job, and selecting the correct size cap and rope was an important part of it. Along with handing his victims a business card and urging them to refer his services to others. That last part never seemed to work, but he had already had hundreds of business cards printed now, so he carried on.

He was going to ask their names so that he could go alphabetically, but at that moment, both Birbal and Tansen rushed up the steps. “Hang me first” Birbal shouted. “No, don’t listen to him, hang me first!” Tansen said.

The “Me-first”s escalated into an argument. 

All this had the hangman watching in surprise. He had seen many strange things, but never any enthusiasm. What is the newer generation coming to these days? He wondered. What happened to the crying and wailing.

He was unable to resolve who should go first, and their enthusiasm was certainly unusual, so he reported this back to the Emperor. And the Emperor was curious, so he summoned the two ministers back. Thankfully it was late evening now and the construction crew had called it a day.

The Emperor demanded to know why they were fighting!

Birbal said nope he would not reveal anything. And why was the Emperor interrupting all this anyway? It was time to carry on with the hanging. People had places to be, there was a crowd waiting to see their hanging – the hangman probably wanted to hang up his hat for the day and go home, the Emperor was late to dinner and so on.

The Emperor demanded again, but Birbal and Tansen refused. He couldn’t order them on penalty of death, but he ordered them on penalty of letting them go free. Birbal sighed theatrically and finally admitted what was up. It was all Akbar’s plan. His foremost astrologers had foretold that the Emperor of Russia would lose his throne for executing two innocent men. That would give Akbar the opportunity to take over ahem… administrative duties. And what’s more, of the two innocent people executed – the first would be reborn and become the next Emperor of Russia, and the second would be reborn and become the next Prime minister.

While we might not expect a 21st century Emperor of Russia to believe that, the 16th century Russian Emperor did believe this. Superstition, and belief in astrological predictions was widespread back then.

The Russian Emperor thought for a long moment and said “I’m not going to become a sinner by spilling innocent blood here. Go back to where you came from. But you can never come back. I’m going to put your names in all the no-fly lists. You two will never enter Russia again”

Birbal and Tansen showed an appropriate amount of disappointment to convince the Emperor.

The journey back was much quicker. For one thing, they rode pretty hard until they had crossed the border back into India. After that Birbal and Tansen were almost in harmony.

Akbar was happy to see them back. Thinking back on it, he decided maybe he had been a little rash in sending them to their deaths. There wasn’t an undo button on those types of things.

That’s all for now 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll talk about Barbarik and Krishna. Strictly speaking this story is further in the Mahabharata, but I’ve had a request for it, and I’ll aim to cover it without giving away too much of the main storyline.

Feedback

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The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!