Sahil Gupta

Tenali Raman was trying to raise a fire by blowing at the glowing embers of coal in the fireplace. All he succeeded in doing was to produce a thick cloud of smoke that stung his eyes. He put on his wife’s cap to prevent the smoke from getting into his eyes and started blowing again. […]

One day, king Krishnadeva Raya stepped out of the gates of his palace and found a man standing there. The man had a rabbit in his hands. On seeing the king he bowed respectfully and said, “I gambled in your name and won this rabbit. It belongs to you. Please accept it.” “Give it to

“Where is God?” asked Tenali. “Everywhere, in everyone and everything,” said his Guru. Later, as Tenali was going home, he saw an elephant charging towards him. “Get out of the way, Tenali; get out of the way,” shouted the elephant driver, “He has gone mad!” But Tenali thought, ‘God is everywhere. He is in the

Seth was one of the richest men in town, but you could easily mistake him for a beggar. One day, he bought a huge lump of gold with all the money he had amassed. He dug a hole in the ground near an unused well and buried the gold there. He was sure that no

There was an old apple tree in Tenali’s garden. One day, Tenali decided to cut the tree down. So, taking a sharp axe in his hand, Tenali struck at the roots of the tree. The grasshoppers, the sparrows and the squirrels came out of their dwelling places and hovered around Tenali, “Please sir, spare this

Once Tenali’s old friend Mangal and his family were on their way to attend some function at Tenali’s house. On the way to Tenali’s village they came upon a huge banyan tree and decided to rest under it for a while. Mangal did not want to stay idle so he decided to make a rope.

One day, when Tenali was going to the forest to cut wood, he met a blind tiger. The tiger initially missed Tenali. But he soon smelt a human presence in the air around him. “Who’s that,” he growled. “Just because I’ve grown old, you think you can come here as and when you please. I’m

One day, the king and his entire royal family were enjoying a grand dance recital taking place in their palace. They had instructed the two guards at the gate not to let anyone enter. When Raman came and wanted to go inside, he was pushed away rudely by the guards. They accused him saying he

Even though Raman was the king’s favourite court jester yet, one day, he was annoyed with Raman and told him to get out of his sight as he didn’t want to see his face. This certainly shocked all the others present in the court and those who were jealous of Raman were overjoyed. On his

Once the king got very annoyed with a bandit and warned his police chief to catch him at the earliest. Later when Raman was passing by, the police caught him taking him for the bandit and buried him in sand neck-deep. From here the real bandit passed by at night and was instantly recognized by

One day, king Krishnadeva Raya displayed a portrait of his in the court, made by some artist. Everyone appreciated both the artist and the portrait; only Raman remained silent. On this the king asked him if he had anything to say. Raman replied that the artist didn’t deserve credit since he painted only one side

When a great sage came to the village, all villagers were excited. He showed different miracles and, hence, all villagers started collecting at the temple every dawn and dusk for him. They also started bringing food and other items of appreciation for the sage. On hearing about this, Raman knew something was fishy. So he

Once a foreign horse trader came to visit king Krishnadeva Raya in his court and told about the horses he had for sale. They sounded so good that the king offered buying them. On hearing this, the trader took 5,000 gold coins as the advance money and said he would return with his horses in

There once lived a priest called Rama, in a village in Devgarh. He had earned a great name for himself. But he was very arrogant. Tenali heard of his arrogance and wanted to teach the priest a lesson. Just then a servant of the priest came with a message, “The son of an army officer

The king used to give food and money every day to two beggars. On receiving the alms one of them, used to say, “God provides.” The other beggar, would say, “Our king provides.” This annoyed the king who thought, ‘It is I who am feeding him and he keeps saying,–God provides, God provides.’ The next