Mentality...!

One day the guards presented a man in King Akbar’s court.

One of the guards said, ‘Your Majesty, he is a man caught for taking bribe’.

‘What was he working as?’ asked the king.

‘Your Majesty, he is the officer in charge of the granary’.

‘Put him in prison. I will think of his punishment later on’.

 

Then Birbal said, ‘A corrupt man will take bribes whatever position he may hold’.

 

A courtier got up and said, ‘I beg your pardon but I do not believe this, there are some jobs in which one can not take any bribe at all’.

‘All right,’ said Birbal, ‘I will put this corrupt man to the job you suggest and we will see what he does’.

So, the courtier said, ‘Give him the job of counting the waves in the river Yamuna. I am sure he can not take bribe in such a futile task’.

King Akbar and Birbal agreed. The corrupt man was called from the prison. He was told to sit by the river Yamuna the whole day and count waves.

Some days passed, one day king Akbar asked, ‘Birbal is there any complaint against the man whom we had punished for talking bribes?’

The courtier intervened, ‘There is no news, your majesty, I told you, and he cannot take bribes there.’

To this, Birbal said, ‘We will go there tomorrow morning and see for ourselves’.

 

The next day at dawn Birbal, the courtier and King Akbar disguised themselves as fishermen. They took a boat, a net and went out to the river Yamuna. They rowed nearer to the shore where the man was sitting, with a pen and a paper in hands and was busy in nothing. As they neared him, he got up and shouted, ‘Hey, who are you? What are you doing here? Do you know you have interfered with some work being done by Royal orders? I have been appointed to count waves in the river. Now you have come and disturbed me. You will be punished for this.’

‘But sir, we are poor fishermen.’ ‘All right, you will have to pay a fine of a hundred gold coins.’

‘Be kind sir. We do not have so much but….’

‘You can manage to give me fifty gold coins, cannot you?’ the man said.

 

But one of the fishermen said angrily, ‘He asking for a hundred and I will give him,’ saying this, he took –off his disguise. He was King Akbar. The man stepped back in shock.

‘I will give you a hundred lashes on your back,’ the king said to the man.

Then he said to Birbal,

‘You were right Birbal. A corrupt man will find ways to take bribe whatever the job he is in.’

 

 

The courtier did not have anything to say. The corrupt officer was given a hundred lashes and put prison...

What...!?! That's it. I just remembered this story and wanted to share it with you! You read it, reflect on it, share it, forget it or... A-C-T on it, I don't care...!?!