Finding Six Fools

One day, amused by a foolish mistake made by a palace servant, Akbar turned to Birbal in good humor and said, "Birbal, I have decided I would like to meet the greatest fools in my kingdom. Go out and bring me six of them, so that I may see for myself just how foolish people can be."

Birbal bowed and set off on his errand, though he suspected — correctly — that the emperor intended this partly as a playful challenge to his wit.

Several days later, Birbal returned to court leading a small, peculiar group of people, and asked each to explain themselves before the emperor.

The first was a man carrying a heavy, empty wooden cart on his own back, sweating and struggling under its weight. When asked why, he explained he was worried the cart itself might get tired if he pulled it along the ground, so he thought it kinder to carry it instead.

The second was a farmer who had spent the whole morning trying to milk a bull, insisting angrily to his neighbors that the animal was simply being stubborn and refusing to give milk.

The third was a man standing beside a well, dropping his shoes down into it one at a time, explaining that he had heard the bottom of a well was always cooler, and hoped the shade might make his new shoes last longer.

Birbal presented three more in similar fashion — each utterly convinced of their own strange logic — and Akbar laughed heartily at each story, thoroughly entertained.

"You asked for six fools, Your Majesty," Birbal said at last, with a small, deliberate pause, "but I must confess something. I have, in truth, brought you only five so far."

"Where is the sixth, then?" Akbar asked, still smiling.

"The sixth fool, Your Majesty," Birbal said gently, "is the king who sent his wisest minister away on a multi-day journey across the kingdom, simply to prove a joke made in passing over a servant's small mistake."

The court fell silent for a moment — and then Akbar, rather than taking offense, broke into his loudest laugh of the day, delighted by Birbal's nerve and honesty. He rewarded Birbal handsomely, admitting that of everyone in the story, he himself had perhaps set the whole foolish errand in motion.