Birbal was a man of clear thinking. He never had any dilemma or confusion. Whatever situation arose in front of him, he always came up with a solution. People always wondered how Birbal was capable of doing this. He was a great help for Emperor Akbar whether it was a small problem in the court or a big one related to the safety of the capital. Birbal never let his intelligence go waste.
Once, Akbar thought of outsmart Birbal with a cunning plan. Akbar decided to put a fake smile on his for an entire
day. Whenever and wherever Birbal saw Akbar, Akbar had a smile on his face. And this puzzled Birbal a lot. For half of the day, he kept wondering what the reason behind his smile could be. At first, he asked other courtiers if they anything about it. But they couldn’t come up with any answer as they themselves were confused. Then Birbal asked the Emperor’s servants too, but they also didn’t know.
Then, Birbal thought that the Emperor would get back to normal after some time. But it didn’t happen. Finally, he walked up to Akbar and asked, “Your Majesty, I have noticed you smiling for almost the entire day. What is the reason behind it? What has made you feel so happy that you haven’t taken the smile off your face?”
Akbar said, “Birbal, last night I saw a dream and that is the reason I am smiling so much.” Birbal asked what the dream was. Akbar replied, “Birbal, I cannot tell you how close you are to my heart. You are my favourite minister and at the same time my best friend too. I hope you know how dear you are to me.”
Birbal said, “Your Majesty, that is an honour for me. But please tell me what dream you had last night.” Akbar said, “Dear, I saw you in my dream. We were walking somewhere in a field and there were two ditches into which we fell. The ditch I fell into was filled with honey. And yours was filled with garbage. And this is the reason behind the big smile on my face.”
Akbar laughed after completing the description of his dream. He thought that he would finally outwit his favourite minister in intelligence. Then, Birbal said, “Your Majesty, this is only the half dream.” Akbar was confused and asked, “How can you say that?”
Birbal replied, “O Lord of the world! I also had the same dream. I saw that we got out of the ditches and looked for water to wash ourselves. But there was no river, pond or lake around. So, I licked you and you licked me.”
