Birbal’s Khichdi
A poor man stands all night in a freezing lake to win the Emperor’s prize, but Akbar refuses to pay him. Birbal answers by cooking a very slow pot of khichdi. By Pagehush Retellings (2026). A traditional tale from the court of Emperor Akbar, retold in our own words.
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हिन्दी में पढ़ेंबीरबल की खिचड़ी · वही कहानीOne winter the nights in Agra were bitterly cold. The water in the palace lake was so icy that the ducks refused to swim in it.
“I wonder,” said the Emperor Akbar to his courtiers, “whether any man would stand in that lake all night for money.”
“For a thousand gold coins, a poor man would do almost anything,” said one of them.
So it was announced that anyone who could stand in the lake from sunset to sunrise would win a thousand gold coins. Many people laughed at the idea, but one poor washerman, who had six hungry children at home, decided to try.
That night he waded into the black water up to his chest. The cold bit into him like a hundred needles. He shivered and his teeth chattered, but he did not come out. Far away, in a window of the palace, a single lamp was burning. All night long the washerman kept his eyes on that tiny light, and somehow it gave him the strength to stay.
At dawn he staggered out, blue with cold, and came before the Emperor to claim his prize.
“Did anything help you through the night?” asked Akbar.
“Only the lamp in the palace window, Your Majesty. I watched it all night.”
A courtier who did not like to see money given away leaned towards the throne. “Then he was warming himself by the palace lamp, Your Majesty. That isn’t fair.”
Akbar nodded. “Quite right. You had help from my lamp. No prize.”
The washerman went home with nothing. When Birbal heard what had happened, he said nothing at all. He simply did not come to court the next day, or the day after.
On the third day the Emperor sent a messenger. “Tell Birbal I want him here at once.”
The messenger came back alone. “Birbal says he will come as soon as his khichdi is cooked, Your Majesty.”
By evening there was still no Birbal, so Akbar went to his house himself. There he found Birbal sitting in the yard beside a small fire. High above the fire, at the very top of a tall bamboo pole, hung a pot of rice and lentils.
“Birbal! What are you doing? That pot is ten feet above the flames. It will never cook.”
“Oh, but it will, Your Majesty,” said Birbal. “If a man can be warmed all night by a lamp in a window half a mile away, surely my khichdi can be cooked by a fire only ten feet below it.”
The Emperor stood very still. Then he laughed, a little ashamed. “I understand, Birbal.”
The next morning the washerman was called back to the palace and given his thousand gold coins, and the courtier who had spoken against him was given nothing at all, except a long look from the Emperor.