Tenali Rama and the Brinjal Curry
Sri Krishna Devaraya was the emperor of Vizayanagra. He had eight advisors. Tenali Rama was one among them. He was very clever and spontaneous. Sri Krishna Devaraya 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, thegarden was very guarded and no one was allowed to view the plants 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 he can easily detect a missing of even one brinjal from his garden. And, theemperor will punish such thief if caught stealing a brinjal from his garden.
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 Appaji 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 had you 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, then we went inside, had the dinner and slept again”.
The chief advisor Appaji 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.
Moral: To start with – Stealing is not a good thing! You can always use your brain and ease out of the difficult situations.