A long
time ago, Krishna Deva Raya had a very wise minister in his court – Tenali Raman.
Once, the kingdom faced a major problem of rates. Rats had multiplied to a very
large number and were creating a lot of destruction. They were nibbling through
important papers, clothes, grains in food stores, etc. There were not many cats
in the kingdom to catch all the rats. So, the king asked all the houses in the
kingdom to keep one cat each. But cats feed on milk and not every house owned a
cow to get the milk. So, the king also gave cows to every house. The people
were happy and brought up the cows and the cats. They used to give a lot of
milk to their cats.
image courtesy: google images
But
Tenali Raman was a lazy fellow and he was also very fond of drinking milk. He
wanted to keep the milk from the cow for himself. So he thought of a clever
trick. He boiled the milk and poured it in a pan. Then, he put this pan in
front of the cat. As soon as the cat touched the boiling hot milk with its tongue,
its tongue got burned and it ran away at once.
Tenali
repeated the same thing the next day and again the day after that. After a few
days like that, the cat refused to touch the milk that was offered to it for
fear of getting its mouth burned. In this way, Tenali got to drink all the milk
himself.
One
day, the king ordered for all the cats to be brought before him for inspection.
While everyone else’s cats were fat and healthy, Tenali’s cat looked thin and
weak. The king was a very angry with Tenali for not taking proper care of the
cat. But Tenali pleaded, “Your Majesty, I cannot help it. My cat does not drink
any milk at all.” The king said, “Nonsense, I will put you in prison for
telling a lie.” Tenali requested the king to give him a chance to prove it and
the king agreed.
So,
Tenali brought his cat and the pan of milk in front of the king. He offered
milk to the cat. But on seeing the pan of milk, the cat ran away, frightened. The
king was surprised at this but he let Tenali go. Tenali lived happily, enjoying
lots of milk by himself.
The End
