The
great king, Shri KrishnaDevaraya was ruling Vijayanagaram. He had eight
intelligent advisors in his court, one among them was Tenali Raman who was very clever and witty. The king was
fond of brinjals, so he had some special
kind of brinjal plants in his garden. The brinjal was very rare kind and
curry made out of it was very tasty which was loved by the emperor. As it
was a rare kind, the garden was guarded and no one was allowed to go to
the garden without the emperor’s permission.
Once
the emperor had arranged dinner for his advisors and the brinjal curry was
served. Tenali Rama had enjoyed the brinjal curry very much and went
home. But he was unable to forget the taste. He told his wife about
the taste of curry. Tenali Rama’s wife also liked brinjal curry, she
asked Tenali Rama to bring few brinjals so that she can prepare a curry. But Tenali Rama knew that the emperor was taking extreme care about the brinjal
plants and it was not easy to get them from his garden. And, the emperor
will punish such thief if caught stealing a brinjal.
But
Tenali’s wife pleaded him to bring a brinjal from the garden without telling
anybody. Tenali Rama had no choice other than stealing a brinjal from the
emperor’s garden. One night he went to the garden, jumped the wall and plucked
few brinjals from the garden. By the god’s grace, no one had seen him.
His wife cooked the brinjals and the curry was very tasty. Like all the
mothers, she too loved her son very much and wanted to serve a brinjal curry
him. But Tenali Rama asked her not to do such thing because if their son
reveals to anybody that he had a rare brinjal curry, then they may get caught
and get punished for stealing a brinjal from the garden.
But his
wife did not agree. She wanted to serve the curry to her son. She
was unable to eat the curry alone without serving her little kid who was
sleeping after doing his homework on the roof of their house. She asked
Tenali Rama to find a way so that their son can also taste the brinjal curry.
Tenali Rama also loved his son, so he thought of an idea and with a lot
of hesitation went on to the roof to wake up his child with a bucket of water
and poured the water on the child. When the child woke up he said “It is
raining. Let’s go inside the house and have a dinner”. After going
inside the room he changed the clothes of his son and gave him the rice and
brinjal curry for the dinner. Tenali Rama told his wife loudly that “it was
raining outside, and let the boy sleep in the room”.
And the
next day, the emperor came to know that few brinjals were missing in his
garden. The Gardener who kept the count of each vegetable and flower
found that the three brinjals were missing. It became a challenging issue for
the emperor and took it very seriously. He declared a reward for the
person who can catch the thief. Chief advisor suspected that only Tenali
Rama was capable of doing such things. And they told the emperor about it.
The emperor sent his courtiers and asked Tenali Rama to come immediately.
Once Tenali Rama came he asked him about the missing brinjals. Then Tenali Rama
told, “I was not aware of the missing brinjals”. Then the chief advisor
told “Tenali Rama was lying. Let’s enquire his son”.
The
king sent his courtiers to bring Tenali Rama’s son. Once his son came, He was
asked what vegetable he had in the dinner last night. The child replied, “The
brinjal curry and it was very tasty”. Then the advisor told Tenali Rama
that he needs to accept his crime. But Tenali Rama said his son had slept
very early and he might be saying something which he got in his dream.
So the
emperor asked the little kid that “can you please explain clearly what you had
done yesterday after coming from the school?”
Tenali
Rama’s son replied that “yesterday after coming from the school, I played
for some time and after that, I went on to the roof, did my homework, and slept
on the roof. But when the rain started, my father came and woke me up.
By that time my dress was fully wet, and then we went inside, had the
dinner and slept again”.
The
chief advisor was shocked because there was no rain at all yesterday. And the
atmosphere was fully dry. So they thought the kid had a dream and freed Tenali
Rama without any punishment. However, later Tenali Raman told the truth
to the emperor and was pardoned by the emperor for his clever witty idea.
The End
