The ministers, the ashtadiggajas and the Rajaguru were arguing one day about people finding fault with others, but not improving their own faults. The Rajaguru felt this was not true. Tenali Raman was silent.
Meanwhile, an artist came in with a painting and showed it to the King and the courtiers. It was an exquisite painting of a beautiful woman. The King was a patron of art and was very happy seeing it. But the courtiers could do nothing but criticise it. Tenali Raman thought that this was the right time to make the Rajaguru understand that he had been wrong earlier. People do find fault with others very easily, but they do not know how to improve either themselves or others.
“Let us place the painting in the market, Sir,” he suggested, “Ask the people to mark on it what they think is wrong with it and needs improvement. The people will be able to judge the painting correctly.”
The King thought this was a great idea, so the painting was put up at a crossroad. People were asked to comment on it. Within a short time the painting was ruined. People had marked whatever they considered was wrong with it: the eyes, the nose, eyebrows, hair, cheeks, neck, jewellery…. everything was marked as being wrong in some way or the other.
In the evening, the painting was brought back to the palace. Everyone saw all the marks people had made on it. But no attempt had been made to set anything right. Tenali Raman saw the picture and said, “Put this up again tomorrow with a new notice.”
So the next day, people in the market-place saw that the painting was back in the same place. But this time there was a notice: All those who have marked flaws in this picture may please explain how the flaws can be improved.
On the previous day, there had been a large crowd around the picture, each one busy finding fault with the picture. But today, the whole day passed without a single person coming forward to correct the flaws they had noticed and pointed out in the picture the previous day.
When the Rajaguru saw this, he realized that Tenali Raman had pointed out his mistake without saying a word of criticism to him!
