Birbal's Khichdi

One bitterly cold winter, Emperor Akbar announced that any person brave enough to stand in the palace lake all through the freezing night, without leaving the water even once, would be rewarded handsomely in the morning.

A poor man, desperate to feed his family, accepted the challenge. He stood in the icy lake from dusk until dawn, shivering through the longest night of his life, and when morning came, he presented himself before the emperor, trembling but triumphant, to claim his reward.

"Tell me," Akbar asked, "how did you manage to survive such bitter cold all night without giving up?"

The man answered honestly, "Your Majesty, I kept my eyes fixed on a small oil lamp burning in a distant window of the palace. Its little flame gave me hope and warmth of spirit, and I stared at it the whole night through, which is what carried me to morning."

At this, one of the jealous courtiers spoke up quickly. "Your Majesty, this man cheated! He was not truly enduring the cold alone — he was drawing warmth from that lamp's fire, however distant. He does not deserve the reward."

Akbar, uncertain, turned to Birbal for his judgment. Birbal said nothing in the moment, only nodding thoughtfully — but the next day, he did not appear at court at all. Nor the day after. By the third day, Akbar sent for him, concerned.

The messenger found Birbal at his home, sitting beside an enormous pot of khichdi hung from a rope high up near the ceiling, with a small fire burning on the floor far below it. "Tell the emperor," Birbal said, "that I am cooking his court's dinner, and it will be ready very soon."

When Akbar arrived himself to see this strange sight, he asked how Birbal expected a pot hanging so far above the flame to ever cook.

"Precisely my point, Your Majesty," Birbal said. "If a fire that distant cannot possibly cook this khichdi, then a lamp burning in a window far across the palace grounds could not possibly have warmed a man standing in a frozen lake. The courtier's accusation was as absurd as my cooking method. The poor man endured that night through his own true courage alone, and he has rightfully earned his reward."

Akbar laughed, understood the lesson at once, and rewarded the poor man generously.