In this episode, we’re going to see meet Akbar and Birbal. We have covered 4 Akbar and Birbal episodes previously. They’re linked in the show notes.
If you have not heard those previous episodes, that’s perfectly fine because these stories are all standalone. But check out the links in the show notes to earlier episodes.
By way of context, Akbar was the Emperor of most of Medieval India. Though he had many ministers, he had only one go-to guy. And that was Birbal.
Birbal could be relied on to solve any problem, give the wisest reply to the trickiest question, and to get anyone out of a sticky situation. Birbal was the equivalent of Jeeves to Akbar’s Bertie Wooster or Hermione to Harry Potter.
Today we’ll see Birbal solve a couple of problems. But we’ll see this from the perspective of his rivals at court. History remembers Akbar’s courtiers as simply divided into 2 groups: Birbal and Not Birbal. But there were a few other notables. We’ll meet a couple of them today. Abdul, the minister for Sports, and Tansen, the minister for Music. Tansen was a very famous personality in his own right, and we’ll hear more stories of him in future episodes.
“Good morning Abdul,” said Tansen in a very musical voice. “Did you have a good sporty weekend?”
“Oh rather, don’t you know, my dear musical friend? I wasn’t at all keen on getting back into the action. If I could, I’d give myself a red card to have more time off the court. Anyway, I wonder why we call it “weekend” instead of just Friday. The word “weekend” implies that we might have more than one non-working day. But that aside, yup, I just did not want to come back.”
Tansen looked at him, sighed, and agreed. “Neither did I. I’d have preferred to continue working in my studio on my next album. Anyway, I wonder what question we’ll be asked in Ol’Akbar’s pop quiz today. But… I know exactly who will ace it. And speaking of the Devil….”
His voice trailed off as the announcer began declaring the next person to enter the Durbar or court. “Announcing his Royal Minister and three-time winner of the inaugural Birbal award…. Birbal himself. This segment was brought to you by Close Up, the Empire’s leading toothpaste, Kya Aap Close-up Karte Hain?”.
Tansen whispered to Abdul – “I don’t think much of Akbar’s new advertisement policy. These advertisements are in poor taste, and they’re lyrically off. I’d be happy to lend them a tune or two if they want it to sound melodious”
Birbal who seemed to be in good humor, entered the court smiling and waving at everyone. No one waved back. The more experienced courtiers grumbled while the newer ones continued to quickly browse through their cliff’s notes of trivia hoping to ace the Emperor’s questions.
Abdul and Tansen were old at this game. That does not mean they were looking forward to it, as we’ve already heard.
Finally, the announcer declared that Emperor Akbar was entering, followed by an Ad for Utterly Butterly delicious Amul.
That’s when everyone put away their trivia notes and paid attention.
Akbar went straight to his throne sat down and looked at his growing “in” pile but didn’t make any effort to read it. “Court, I’ve been thinking…”
“Here it comes,” said Abdul. “It’s as easy to read as if he were bowling from a mile away”
“I’ve been thinking of a problem. It bothered me all night and I couldn’t sleep.”
He clapped his hands and immediately an attendant brought forward a whiteboard and some markers. Akbar drew a line on the board. And then he announced – “Make this shorter”
Abdul spoke up, “Certainly Your Majesty! Could someone pass me the eraser?”
“Ah, Abdul. There’s a catch I forgot to mention – you can’t touch the line” said Akbar.
“What if I cover it with some paper, your Majesty? Here, I have some sheet music handy” interjected Tansen.
“No, you’re really not making the line shorter. I want the line to be made shorter without anyone touching it,” replied Akbar
A few other courtiers tried, but nothing seemed to satisfy the Emperor. The Minister for Science suggested accelerating the whiteboard to near the speed of light, and that would contract its length, but no one seemed to understand what he was talking about, so they just dismissed him as a crackpot. The Minister for standards suggested redefining the length of the standard meter. That would mean there would be a massive infrastructure overhaul across the empire to adopt the new standard, but it would solve Akbar’s problem.
“Hmm, tempting, tempting,” said Akbar. “But let’s table that for now and continue”
The Minister for Magic pulled out his wand and suggested putting a spell on the line, but given that all of his attempts at magic had been completely ineffective so far, he wasn’t even given a chance.
“Why do we even have a Minister for Magic?” Abdul asked Tansen. “Bad choice by the Emperor. That’s a no-ball in my book!”
Well, when everyone in the court had tried but failed miserably, all eyes turned to Birbal.
“Why are all of you looking at me that way?” asked Birbal. “Don’t expect me to solve this”
Akbar asked maybe even with a glimmer of hope, “Really Birbal? You don’t have an answer?”
The spirits of the court were generally lifting. This was a problem even Birbal couldn’t solve!
But then, Birbal had to spoil it all by saying that No, he had only been kidding. Of course, he knew how to make the line shorter without touching it.
Given these were pre-Covid times, Birbal had no hesitation in picking up the whiteboard marker that others had handled. He walked up to the board and, next to the original line he simply drew a new longer line
That satisfied Akbar’s requirement in every way. The line itself was not touched but it had become shorter, by comparison.
Akbar was enthusiastic. Yes this answer satisfied his arbitrary criteria. But like a true leader, he did not point out to the rest of the court that Birbal had yet again got the better of them. He did not need to.
Abdul on the sidelines asked “I say, Tansen, old chap. This is quite unsportsmanlike behavior. This Birbal is way ahead. We need something like the offside rule here. How about you and me, team up and talk to the old man himself?”
That resonated with Tansen. “Our thoughts are in harmony. Birbal gets all the praise all the time. It’s not like we aren’t remarkable. I mean, I made it rain just by singing. You’d think I’d get some credit for saving the Empire from the Drought last year” He agreed to team up with Abdul and the two took their grievance to the Emperor himself. Not right then, with hundreds of courtiers around, but in a more private setting.
After listening to them, Akbar summed it up – “So, you both think Birbal may be getting an unfair advantage in running administrative affairs just because he’s able to answer some completely academic and impractical questions? Fair point. Let me call Birbal over”
And he did. Birbal arrived promptly accompanied by an advertisement for Pepsi – “Yeh hi hai right choice” the announcer said making Tansen and Abdul wince.
“Birbal, thanks for coming over promptly. I need all 3 of you to do something for me. As it so happens, I have received news of three separate caravans heading out of the capital. I want each of you to find out how many bullock carts there are in your caravan – Tansen you take the one heading West, Birbal – you take the one going East, and Abdul – the one going South. Report back here immediately. Nothing else is more important, so no lunch or snack breaks”
The trio left the palace immediately and all three had returned within the hour.
“Well, how did you guys do? Tansen?” asked Akbar
“I counted exactly 387.5 carts,” said Tansen beaming with pride.
“How could there be half a cart?” asked the others.
“I separated the Major carts from the Minor ones. All the major carts were much larger, like an SUV size – two bulls per cart. The minor one was a compact size cart with a single bull pulling it”.
“Well done!” said Akbar but his answer did not communicate enthusiasm. Tansen wondered where he had gone wrong.
Abdul went next. “I counted enough carts to fill 21 football fields end to end”
“India is on the metric system Abdul,” said Akbar. “So our measurements can be objective and not comparative”
“Sire, I counted 421 carts” hastened Abdul glancing over his playbook quickly.
“How about you Birbal?” asked Akbar
“I’m not sure your highness” replied Birbal and both Tansen’s and Abdul’s hearts gave a flutter of joy.
“Why are you not sure Birbal?” asked the Emperor.
“It depends, your highness. Allow me to explain. The carts were transporting grain, your highness. It’s freshly grown wheat harvested right here in our Kingdom. I spoke to the Caravan owner who assured me that he’d love to sell his grain right here, but our neighboring Kingdoms offer much more favorable terms. I mean for him, he wouldn’t have to worry about transportation costs, the highway tolls, bullock cart insurance, bandit insurance, armed security costs, and all that if we simply were to buy the grain from him. Our own citizens were complaining about grain shortage the other day, so it seemed like a win-win to me. I authorized a tariff waiver and we have bought all the grain from him. So coming back to your question, the answer depends on whether you want the number of carts that actually left the capital or the ones that were going to. The former is Zero of course and if you’re still interested in the latter, it was 312 carts”
“Job well done, all three of you. Thank you”. Said Akbar, and he did not need to say anything further.
Tansen and Abdul had received their answer. Birbal’s competencies were not limited to simply answering some tricky brain teasers.
That’s all for now
Previous Akbar and Birbal Episodes
Episode 9 – A clever Minister in King Akbar’s court
Episode 10 – The Great Detective
Episode 22 – Slow Cooker
Episode 38 – A Close Shave!
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll do the story of Angulimala, the Ancient Indian equivalent of Darth Vader from the Star Wars movies! He was a promising student at University, before going over to the dark side, and then came back to the light when he met the Buddha.