It was a sunny morning in the city of Vijayanagar. A tall, dark man in spotless white clothes walked slowly towards the palace of King Krishna Deva Raya.
Suddenly, he heard young voices. He was curious, so he stopped to listen.
Six small boys were trying to act out a day in the royal court of Vijayanagar. They had an old, broken bed covered with a tattered piece of matting as the throne.
But the boys could not decide who they wanted to play.
“It’s my turn to be Deva Raya… you promised!” wailed one thin boy.
“Then can I be Minister Saluva Timma?” asked another.
One plump boy said, “I want to play the royal court’s cleverest man”
This conversation delighted the tall man. He immediately turned around to find a place to sit and watch this street show.
The boys playing Tenali and Minister Timma stood on the two sides of the throne. The other plying courtiers stood before them.
The thin boy plying Deva Raya now yelled, “Bring in the first case!”
A small boy named Kesava came forward.
The boy king puffed up, “Tell us your problem, Kesava?”
My neighbour’s cow keeps getting into my garden. It eats up the banana plants and destroys the pumpkin patch. Today, it also ate my mother’s marigold flowers. My father is too poor to build a bamboo fence. How then should I stop the cow?”
“Stop growing pumpkins,” said one courtier.
“Then what will we eat?” Kesava asked.
The man now started laughing aloud.
TENALI RAMA
The boys were astonished to find out that someone was watching them. So, the young Tenali Tama asked, “You have been listening to us, sir. Do you have a solution?”
“Well,” the man said, Kesava could send his goats to destroy the neighbour’s garden.”
“I can’t. My neighbour is a wrestler, sir,” Kesava said.
Little Tenali now sighed, “Only I can solve Kesava’s problem.”He then asked, “What do you like more Kesava, pumpkin or payasam?”
“Payasam,” said Kesava.
“The next time the cow eats your pumpkins, quickly milk her. You can make payasam, with the milk, or sell it to buy some pumpkin,” Tenali said.
The man got up, went up to little Tenal and bowed low. He said, “You are as clever as the real Tenali.” He then walked away.
Turning at a corner, he stopped and laughed aloud in delight. “Well, Tenali,” he said to himself, “You thought you were so clever. But a ten-year-old boy has beaten you.”