One day in the court, Emperor Akbar was in a jolly mood. He decided to have some fun at Birbal’s expense and announced to the court that he had a strange dream last night. Everyone got ready to hear the dream.
Akbar narrated that in his dream, he and Birbal were walking on a road at night. It was too dark, and they had lost the way. Suddenly they tripped onto something and fell into two drains on either side of the road. Akbar said, ” I fell into a drain full of sweet. But, Birbal was not so fortunate. He fell into a drain of dirty water.
Everyone started laughing. Akbar was pleased with himself that finally, he could win over Birbal in wit. Birbal remained calm.
Once the laughter died down, he said, “Hujoor, you are right. I also had the same dream last night. While your dream ended halfway, I have seen the full dream. After some time, we came out of the drain. However, our body was fully covered – yours in sweet and mine in dirty water. There was no water nearby to clean ourselves.”
As Birbal took a pause, one of the courtiers asked, “How did you clean yourselves then?”
Birbal replied, ” We licked each other clean”. Everyone suppressed their laughter as Akbar became embarrassed. Akbar decided never to make fun of Birbal in the future.
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