As Tenali Raman was known for his wit and humour, he was growing in popularity and this resulted in all the other ministers to be jealous of him. So, they all decided to poison the king’s mind with false allegations against Tenali. Though the king did not believe them at first and ignored them, as time went, their persistence resulted in the king having second thoughts. He thought that there must be some bit of it which was true and so one day he decided to confront Tenali on this.
One day, in the court, in front of all the ministers, he questioned Tenali about the allegations he faced. He asked Tenali to prove his innocence. Tenali became very sad and left the court without saying anything. All the ministers were happy to see this as their plan had succeeded.
The next day, a guard walked into the court holding a letter. He gave the letter to the king. It was a letter from Tenali and it said that he was going to die in order to prove his innocence. The king felt very upset after reading this and did not know what to do. Soon, the other ministers, in order to console the king, started to sing praises in favour of Tenali Raman. No one knew that Tenali was hiding among the public crowd in the court. As they continued to sing praises, Tenali abandoned his disguise and walked up to the king. The king was very happy to see him again. Tenali thus proved his innocence to the king through the mouths of the same ministers who had made false allegations against him. The ministers hung their heads in shame as they were given a taste of their own medicine.
Moral - One must always be good and do good and that will definitely be appreciated by all.