Tenali Rama And The Cat

One day, King Sri Krishnadevaraya was sitting in his court when he heard a commotion outside the palace gates. He commanded his guards to find out what was happening. A guard brought in a man who identified himself as the village head. The king asked him what the matter was. The man replied saying that the village was infested with rats and that the rats were destroying the food grains and creating chaos. The man had come to ask the King for help. 

The King assured the village head by telling him that he would consult with his courtiers and find a solution to the problem. 

King Sri Krishnadevaraya ordered his ministers to arrive at a solution for the rat problem. One of the ministers said that since cats eat rats, they could solve the rat menace by giving a cat to each household in the village. 

However, another minister enquired on how the poor would manage to feed the cats. The same minister suggested that they could give the villagers a cow along with the cats so that the cats would be well-fed. 

The King agreed to this solution and the villagers were provided with cats and cows. As the days passed, the villagers fed the cats milk and the cats became healthy and lazy. 

Tenali Raman observed this and felt that something is wrong with the solution. 

The next day, Raman placed a hot bowl of milk in front of one of the cats. As soon as the cat spotted the milk, it tried to drink it but ended up burning its tongue. The cat ran away and never touched milk again. The same cat then began to hunt and the owner’s house was rid of rats once and for all. 

One day, the King wanted to review the problem and ordered the villagers to get the cats to the court. The villagers complained that their cats hadn’t  been hunting cats and told the King that only one owner’s cat has been hunting, thanks to Raman. 

The King asked the owner if they hadn’t been feeding that cat milk, to which Raman replied that the cat refused to drink milk. Raman demonstrated the same in front of the King and then explained that he had placed a bown of hot milk in front of it. The milk burnt its tongue, and it has since stopped drinking milk. 

The King asked why Raman did so to which Tenali Raman replied that the cats would only hunt the rats when they are hungry. Since they were drinking milk every day, the cats had become healthy and lazy and hence, they didn’t hunt. He explained that he had given the cat hot milk to prove just this. 

The King understood the flaw in the plan and asked the ministers to find another solution to help solve the problem. He then rewarded Raman handsomely. 

Moral 
A wrong is wrong even if everyone else is doing it.