Once king asked Tenali to bring four fools. Tenali said, “OK”, and asked some time to find them. He saw a man carrying a gift packet. Tenali asked him, “to whom you are carrying this gift?” The man replied, “My wife has remarried. Now they have a child, so I am taking this gift for them.” Tenali got convinced that he was a fool. At another time he saw a man riding a buffalo carrying a bundle of grass on his head. Tenali asked him, “Why are you carrying this bundle on your head?” The man replied, “In fact, my buffalo is pregnant, so I thought that she should not carry too much load; that is why I have put this bundle on my own.”
Tenali considered him also a candidate to take to the king. So next morning he took those people to Akbar’s court and presented them to him as the biggest fools. “But these are only two fools; where are the other two? I asked you to bring four fools,” the king asked. Tenali folded his hands and bending a little said, “Sir, The third fool are you who asked me to bring the fools; and the fourth fool is me who has brought these fools for you.” When the king heard about them, he laughed a lot on their foolishness.
