Akbar And Birbal

Never Ending Story

Birbal was one of the favourite gems of King Akbar. But as there is saying that, "A favourite never has a friend", there were many courtiers who envied Birbal.

They always tried to disagree him before Akbar. Once they decided to teach him a lesson. They made Akbar addicted to listening to stories. Then, they convinced him that Birbal knew a lot of interesting stories.

One day, King Akbar decided to listen to the stories of Birbal. Now, Birbal was caught in a vicious web. He hardly knew any story. Still the royal orders could not be violated. Birbal started narrating some of the stories that he knew.

Akbar listened to the stories with closed eyes and at some intervals of time, he said 'and then . . .' as if urging to narrate more stories. Birbal understood that this cycle of 'and then . . .' would never come to an end. Therefore, he started narrating peculiar story.

The story went like this. "There lived a farmer. He worked very hard to produce the crops. Unfortunately, the major part of the harvest was consumed by the sparrows. The farmer got really annoyed. He decided to get rid of this problem."

"And then...," Akbar said with closed eyes. Birbal continued with the story. "The farmer built a big godown to store the food grains. It was made of strong bricks and cement. It has large wooden doors. Not even a worm would enter it. Now the sparrows were in a fix. They knew not what to do and what not to do," said Birbal. "And then...," Akbar asked again.

Then the sparrows called on an emergency meeting. They started discussing their problem. One little sparrow said, "This stupid farmer has locked the food grains in the godown. How dare he do that?"

"Calm down, dear," said an old sparrow in a feeble voice, "I have an idea. We can hire a mouse who would make a hole in the door of the godown. Then, we will be able to satisfy our hunger."

All the sparrows approved of the idea. They hired a mouse. After some negotiations, they decided a suitable remuneration for him. "And then..." said Akbar, again.

Then, the sparrows took the mouse to the godown. The mouse closely inspected the doors and started his work. Within no time, he made two big holes in the door.

"And then....," said the King Akbar.

"Sir, then the first sparrow went inside the godown, satisfied her hunger and returned back," said Birbal.

"And then," Akbar said again.

"Then the second sparrow went inside the godown, satisfied her hunger and returned back," continued Birbal.

"And then," asked Akbar.

"Sir, do you know what happened next?" said Birbal in a very excited mood. Akbar opened his eyes.

"Sir, then the third sparrow went inside the godown, at the food grains and came outside," Birbal repeated, "And then the fourth sparrow...."

"Stop it, Birbal," said Akbar, irritatingly. "What are you doing? Why is the story not proceeding further?"

"Sir, there were hundreds of thousands of hungry sparrows. The story cannot move further before the all have satisfied their hunger," replied Birbal.

"I got your point, Birbal," said Akbar.

"Your story is never going to end. So, you may leave now."

"Thank you, Sir," said Birbal and left.