Neither in Sun Nor in Shade

Even the best of friends quarrel, and one day Akbar and Birbal had a terrible one. The Emperor lost his temper and shouted, “Go away, Birbal! Leave my court! I don’t want to see you here again!”

Birbal bowed, said nothing, and walked out of the palace. The next day he was gone from the city. Nobody knew where.

At first the Emperor was glad. But after a week the court felt dull. After a month it felt empty. The courtiers flattered him all day long, and nobody made him laugh, and nobody told him the truth when he needed to hear it. Akbar realised he missed his friend terribly.

His servants searched every town and village, but they could not find Birbal anywhere. So the Emperor thought of a clever plan.

He sent messengers to every village in the empire with an announcement. “Whoever can come to the Emperor’s court walking neither in the sun nor in the shade will receive a thousand gold coins.”

All over the empire, people scratched their heads. How could anyone walk neither in the sun nor in the shade? If you walked under a tree, you were in the shade. If you stepped out from under it, you were in the sun. A few people tried walking only at night, but the Emperor said the night was simply shade from the whole world, and sent them away.

Then, one bright morning, a poor farmer came walking slowly up the road to the palace. Over his head, held up with both hands, was a charpai, a light bed woven from rope. The sun shone through the gaps in the rope weave, so that he was covered in little spots of sunlight and little spots of shade, neither all in sun nor all in shade.

The Emperor jumped up from his throne. “Who told you to do this?”

The farmer bowed. “A guest who is staying in my house, Your Majesty. A clever man, with a beard.”

Akbar laughed out loud. “There is only one man in my empire who could have thought of that.”

That very day the Emperor rode out to the farmer’s village himself. And there, sitting outside a little mud house and drinking a cup of buttermilk, was Birbal.

“You found me, Your Majesty,” said Birbal, standing up and bowing.

“No,” said Akbar. “You let yourself be found.” And he embraced his friend.

The farmer got his thousand gold coins, Birbal came home to the court, and that evening the palace was full of laughter again.