Birbal Turns Tables

Once Emperor Akbar was narrating his dream in the court. The dream began with Akbar and Birbal walking towards each other on a dark night. It was so dark that they could not see each other, and so collided and fell. The Emperor said – “Fortunately for me, I fell into a sea of Paayzam (an Indian sweet made with milk and semolina), but guess what Birbal fell into?” Courtiers asked curiously – “What, Your Majesty?”

“A gutter.” The whole court resounded with laughter. The Emperor was thrilled that at least for once he had been able to score over Birbal.

But Birbal was unperturbed. As the laughter had died down, he said – “Your Majesty, Strangely enough, I too had the same dream, but unlike you, I slept on till the end. When you climbed out of that pool of delicious Paayazam, and I climbed out of that stinking gutter, we found that there was no water with which to clean ourselves and so guess what we did?” Asked the Emperor – “What did we do, Birbal?” Birbal said smilingly – “We licked each other to clean each other.”

The Emperor got red with embarrassment and resolved never to let Birbal down again.