Tenali Raman and the Goddess Kali

Long before he became famous at the court of Vijayanagara, Tenali Raman was a poor young man called Ramakrishna, from the village of Tenali. He was clever and cheeky, but he had no money and no idea how to make his way in the world.

One day a wandering holy man told him, “Go to the temple of the goddess Kali in the forest. Spend the night there and pray with all your heart. If she is pleased with you, she will give you a blessing.”

So that evening Ramakrishna walked into the forest and sat down in the dark, empty temple. He prayed and prayed. Owls hooted outside. The wind moaned through the trees. And then, at midnight, the temple filled with a blazing light.

The goddess Kali stood before him. She was enormous and terrifying, and she had a thousand heads, each with two blazing eyes, all looking at him at once.

Ramakrishna stared at her. And then, to his own horror, he began to laugh.

The thousand faces frowned. “You dare to laugh at me?” thundered the goddess.

“Forgive me, Mother,” gasped Ramakrishna. “I only thought: I have one nose, and when I catch a cold it gives me such trouble. If you, with a thousand noses, ever caught a cold, how would you wipe them all?”

For a long moment the temple was silent. Then a thousand mouths began to twitch, and the goddess Kali laughed too, so loudly that the forest shook.

“No one has ever made me laugh before,” she said. “For that, you shall have a gift.” She held out her hands, and in them were two golden bowls. “In this bowl is milk that gives wisdom. In this bowl is curd that gives wealth. You may drink one.”

Ramakrishna looked from one bowl to the other. Wisdom without money meant a hungry life. Money without wisdom meant a foolish one.

“May I look more closely at both, Mother?”

The goddess handed him the bowls. And quick as a flash, Ramakrishna poured them together and drank the whole lot in one long gulp.

The thousand eyes flashed. “I told you to choose one!”

“And I chose, Mother,” said Ramakrishna, wiping his mouth. “I chose both. Surely the goddess who has a thousand heads would not want to give a poor man only half a blessing?”

Kali shook her thousand heads, half angry and half amused. “You have tricked a goddess. Very well. You shall be wise, and you shall do well in the world. But you will earn your living by making people laugh, and you will always have to use your wits to stay out of trouble.”

The light vanished. Ramakrishna walked home through the forest, and from that day on he was quicker and wiser than anyone in Tenali. Before long he set off for the great city of Vijayanagara, where the king, Krishnadevaraya, loved poets and clever men. And there, as Tenali Raman, he became the most famous wit in all of South India.