The Most Beautiful Child

One day the Emperor Akbar was holding his little grandson on his knee. “Is there a more beautiful child anywhere in the world?” he asked the court.

“Certainly not, Your Majesty,” said the courtiers at once, as courtiers do.

But Birbal said, “Every child is the most beautiful in the world to somebody, Your Majesty.”

Akbar laughed. “Nonsense. Some children are beautiful and some are not. Go out into the city, Birbal, and bring me the most beautiful child you can find. Then we shall see.”

Birbal walked through the streets of Agra all morning. He saw children playing marbles, children selling flowers, children carrying their baby brothers on their hips. At last, in a narrow lane, he stopped beside a poor woman who was washing clothes. Sitting in the dust beside her was a little boy with a runny nose, a smudged face and one tooth missing. He was eating a piece of bread, and most of it was on his chin.

“Good mother,” said Birbal, “I am looking for the most beautiful child in Agra, to show to the Emperor.”

The woman’s face lit up. She scooped up the little boy and kissed his dirty cheek. “Then you have found him, sir! Look at those eyes. Look at that smile. There is no child in the whole empire as lovely as my son.”

Birbal smiled, and asked if he might take them both to the palace. The woman washed the boy’s face, combed his hair with her fingers, and came along, glowing with pride.

When they entered the court, the courtiers looked at the boy and began to snigger. The Emperor frowned.

“Birbal, is this a joke? This is the most beautiful child in Agra?”

“I asked his mother, Your Majesty,” said Birbal, “and she said so. And I believe she meant it with all her heart.”

The woman held her son a little tighter. Akbar looked at her face, shining with love, and then down at his own grandson, and the frown slowly left his face.

“You are right, Birbal,” he said quietly. “To his mother, he is the most beautiful child in the world. As my grandson is to me.”

He ordered a gift of gold and fine new clothes for the woman and her son, and he never again asked who the most beautiful child in the world was.