In this episode, we’re going to do a story about Akbar and Birbal. We’ve covered several Akbar Birbal stories before. Check out the links in the show notes.
These stories are all set in medieval India, most of which was ruled by Emperor Akbar. If you haven’t heard of the previous Akbar and Birbal stories, that’s totally fine. All these stories stand alone. All you need to know is that Akbar was a real historical person. He was a Mughal Emperor and ruled over most of India, over 500 years ago.
Birbal was a minister in his court and the smartest of them all. He was a real historical person too. He was the Jeeves to Akbar’s Bertie Wooster or Sherlock Holmes to Watson. There was really no problem that Birbal could not solve, and no question that he could not answer in a clever way. We’ll see him solve two such problems today.
The first story is about a quarrel between neighbors. Let’s call them Dhoort and Padosi.
Dhoorth was a sly person, just like the meaning of his name. Which literally means sly.
And Padosi lived next door to Dhoorth, as you might expect from the translation of his name, which literally means neighbor.
Now Padosi had been trying to grow crops in his yard. And it wasn’t working for him.
He was wondering why his neighbor’s yard was so full of crops.
He straight up asked Dhoorth about it one day.
“Howdy, neighborino, how come your garden looks so much better than mine”
Dhoorth pondered for a moment. “You know what they say about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence? In this case, I have to admit it is certainly greener on my side. Now I think the difference is because you haven’t been irrigating it”
“How can I? We haven’t had rain in weeks. How do you irrigate yours without rain”
“Ah, dear boy. I just store the water in my W.E.L.L. He indicated a stone structure near the edge of the property”
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” asked Padosi.
“It’s my Water Economizer of Limitless Length. W.E.L.L”
“Well, so that’s what it is. I thought you started constructing a tower and gave up quickly. But you know, it can’t be limitless length. If it were, you’d bore clear through the other side of the Earth”
“I know, it’s the only acronym I could find. Anyway, I’m filing a patent for it. I hope it’s well-received.”
“You couldn’t give me one, could you?” asked Padosi. “I’ll give you 50 gold coins!”
That was far too tempting an offer for Dhoorth. This was an opportunity to trick his very gullible neighbor.
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s a limited edition. One of its kind and all that”
“A hundred gold coins,” said Padosi, desperation showing on his face.
“Oh alright, but just because I let you talk me into it. The well is yours”
As we live in a world where property transfers take weeks and sometimes months, it might seem bizarre that Padosi was able to transfer the Well ownership from Dhoorth in just a few minutes. All it took was a quick seal of approval on stamp paper that Dhoorth had lying around, and a couple of signatures from two passersby who agreed to act as witnesses.
Padosi was excited to get his garden back in shape. He immediately made for the well with a bucket to pull out water. And that’s when Dhoorth stopped him. “Padosi, what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m just about to pull water from the well to, well, water my plants,” said Padosi.
Dhoorth whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. “He even admits to stealing!”
Louder still, and a little sternly he said “Padosi, you must not take what doesn’t belong to you!
You bought the well, but not the water in it. The water in it is mine”
Padosi’s jaw dropped at that. He didn’t have an answer. He read the sale agreement again. And Dhoorth was right, it made no references to the water. “But…But…” he stammered.
“No ifs and buts. I’ll let it slide this time, but go away and never steal my property again”
If Dhoorth thought he had made easy money and Padosi would not fight back somehow, he was wrong.
Padosi did fight back, but not by playing a trick of his own. He instead went to complain. It was rumored that Emperor Akbar could deliver justice. Padosi showed up in court and appealed to the Emperor on grievance day. He presented his case to Akbar, who sat there thinking. Akbar thought this was rather a tricky situation. On the one hand, Dhoorth had done everything by the book. The law was on his side. But Padosi had been clearly misled, there was no doubt about it.
And Akbar began to get nervous, as all eyes in the court stared at him, waiting for a decision.
“Um… sorry. Now they’re calling me, so I have to go! Birbal – take care of this childishly simple problem, won’t you?” With that Akbar hurried out of the courtroom. “That was a close shave,” he thought to himself. A minute longer and everyone would have said Akbar can’t make a simple judgment. He did hang around just outside the courtroom listening to the remaining conversation
Birbal spoke up – “Padosi, like the Emperor, said this was a childishly simple problem indeed. You shouldn’t be bothering the Emperor to solve these problems for you. Now all you have to do is to ask Dhoorth for the rent.”
“Rent?! What are you talking about?” asked Padosi.
“For the Well of course. He’s storing his water in your well, isn’t he? So I’d say he should be paying you some kind of storage fees. Maybe amounting to at least what you had to pay for the well itself. But you’re free to set it significantly higher if you choose. You know, with the harsh economic outlook and everything. And if he doesn’t like it, he’s welcome to remove his water from your well, and warn him never to store it there again.”
That’s Birbal for you. Although I have to admit, Padosi should really have thought about this on his own. Maybe they didn’t teach people to think outside the box back then.
Oh well, the second story is a little different. This one was a harder problem to solve. It begins with a bedtime routine. If you were wondering how an Emperor sleeps at night, wonder no longer. The answer is that a dedicated crew was in charge of every aspect of the Emperor’s sleeping arrangement. There was a maid in charge of the bed, a maid in charge of lights, another in charge of the Emperor’s Teddy Bear and Security Blankets, and a maid in charge of the mosquito repellant. Yeah, all funded by taxpayers.
One day, the maid in charge of the bed, whose name was Aalsi by the way, was running a bit late. By the time she clocked in most of the other maids were done with their chores for the night. “Hurry up won’t you,” said the maid in charge of selecting a lullaby. Most of the other maids were done and exited the scene one by one. Aalsi got to work quickly and arranged the sheets and pillows exactly the way Akbar liked them.
When she was done, she looked around. Aalsi was all alone in Akbar’s bedroom. She was tempted to try something that she had always been curious about. Aalsi had always wondered what it would be like to sleep on this awesome bed. Now her own bed was a straw mat on the hard uneven concrete floor of her hut. She figured she could lie down real quick, just for a minute, and then make the bed again. No one would ever know. Unfortunately for her, that’s not how things worked out for her.
The first part of her plan went okay. She lay down and closed her eyes. But where she struggled was in the part about getting up after a minute. And when Akbar entered his bedroom that night, she was still snoring.
“What is going on here?” thundered the Emperor
“Ramu, I’ll have breakfast in bed” muttered Aalsi.
Akbar’s rage crossed boiling point. He ordered the guards to take Aalsi away.
But when he asked for the maid who was in charge of his bed, he was surprised when they turned around and brought Aalsi back.
This enraged Akbar even further. If she had been a noble living on taxpayer income, who had snuck in and grabbed a little shut-eye, that was still something the Emperor could accept. But a mere commoner? No way. Aalsi must be punished. By death.
Aalsi was dejected. The few minutes of relaxation came at a terrible price. She did the only thing she knew was possible in those circumstances. She appealed to Birbal.
Birbal heard her patiently. And by the time she concluded her story, Birbal already had an idea.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “But it’ll spoil the episode if it’s revealed at this point in the episode. So I’ll whisper it to you instead”
He did and for the first time since the incident, Aalsi actually smiled. All would be well.
So as Birbal had suggested, Aalsi began acting on the plan. At 4 am, the time that Birbal had suggested, Aalsi began wailing at the top of her voice. She did have a loud voice, and as the prison was right next to the Palace, Akbar was woken up by his cries.
Rather than being angry at being woken up, Akbar was curious. He had the Aalsi summoned to him immediately. “I know you’re being executed in a few hours. But that’s nothing to cry about, is it?” he asked the maid, never himself having been in a similar situation.
“Your Majesty, I’m not crying about my own execution. I’m crying for you,” replied Aalsi.
“For me? Why? What are you worried about?” he asked
“Well, I was thinking of your situation, your majesty. I slept in the bed for 10 minutes, and God punished me – I was sentenced to death. And you? Your majesty has been sleeping in that bed for years. Just imagine what punishment God has in store for you”
That amused Akbar, who could be a little severe at times, but was always inclined towards an out-of-the-box intellectual explanation. Like the very arbitrary assumption that time spent in bed was directly proportional to the treatment, irrespective of any other factors.
I know, sounds weird, but this kind of logic appealed to the analytical mindset that Akbar strived to cultivate.
He let off Asli with a stern warning not to do it again. But for his peace of mind, he did verify with Asli that it was Birbal from whom she got the idea. It only cemented Birbal’s place in Akbar’s mind as the smartest cookie of all time.
Well, those are the two main stories I had for today. As a bonus, I’ll mention one additional mini-story. These are in the typical Akbar-Birbal story format. Akbar asks a question, many attempt a response, but it’s Birbal who invariably gets the right answer every time.
And one day, Akbar was curious. Who was greater, God or himself?
It was a good question to ask. And everyone who knew how religious Akbar was would have leaped to the conclusion that the answer he expected was that God was obviously greater.
“God can do anything, your majesty,” said one sycophant.
“God created everything and controls everything,” said another
Birbal had a different opinion. “Your majesty, you are greater than God, of course,” he said to the general astonishment of the whole court. Some ministers were sure that now Birbal would finally be getting it. Akbar would not tolerate what he would see as an insult to God.
And Akbar indeed seemed to be teetering in that direction. He did ask Birbal to explain himself.
“Birbal, is there anything I can do that God can’t?”
“Yes, your majesty. There is certainly one thing you can do that God cannot. You can banish someone from your realm. But if God wants to kick someone out of the Universe, well… it’s just impossible”
Yet another clever reply. The royal scorekeeper tracking witty remarks put another little notch on the Birbal side of the scoreboard. The other half of the scoreboard representing all other ministers was completely empty. All the notches were on Birbal’s half of the board. But the scorekeeper wasn’t going to complain about it. It would just make his job redundant.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
We’ve covered Akbar and Birbal stories previously in Episodes 9 – A Clever Minister in King Akbar’s Court, Episode 10 – The Great Detective, Episode 22 – Slow Cooker, Episode 38 – A Close Shave, Episode 73 – Teacher’s Pet, and Episode 94 – Hunting for Hidden Gold.
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll learn some wisdom from the Buddha. I’ll be back with Jataka tales.