Once upon a time, king Krishnadevaraya was upset because Tenali Raman was missing for a month. He sent soldiers across the kingdom to search for him. The soldiers even went to Tenali’s home to search for him. But wherever they went, they found no trace of him. The soldiers reported this to the king and he felt very dejected. Then, he ordered the soldiers to arrest whomever they found suspicious in the kingdom in order to find the whereabouts of Tenali.
Simultaneously, in the neighbouring kingdom, there was a king by the name of Marthandam who was assembling a gang of 5 men to create chaos in the Vijayanagar kingdom. The 5 men took orders from that king and came to VIjayanagar. They were clad in black cloaks and masks. As soon as they reached, they started to create chaos in VIjayanagar. The rising number of cases soon reached the king. He then ordered the army to seize all of them immediately.
The army tracked the gang down and captured all of them successfully. They took the gang to king Krishnadevaraya. He ordered the soldiers to remove all their masks so that he could see their faces. The soldiers started removing the masks of the gang members one by one. THe final person they unmasked was none other than Tenali Raman himself.
The king was shocked to see this sudden turn of events and he asked Tenali to give an explanation for his actions. Tenali said that he had gone undercover to the neighbouring kingdom in order to test the words of king Marthandam who had said that he was the friend of king Krishnadevaraya. Tenali said that he had lied and he was the one who had ordered the gang of 5 men to attack their kingdom. The king was pleased with his work and he ordered the other 4 men to be put in prison. He also awarded 4 acres of land as a reward to Tenali Raman.
Moral - One can escape from any difficult situation if they think cleverly.