One day in the court of king Krishnadevaraya, Tenali Raman requested permission to visit his hometown. He asked for a leave of 15 days. The king accepted and Tenali Raman left the court. As soon as he left, the other ministers started to plot the downfall of Tenali.
The days passed and with each passing day, the king grew sad as he had no one to help him properly in taking tough decisions. Meanwhile, the other ministers started to infect the king’s mind by planting wrong information about Tenali Raman. Like this, an entire month went by quickly.
After a month, Tenali Raman came into the court striding happily. The king demanded him to give an explanation for his extended leave without any reason. Tenali Raman said that he had learnt a few magic tricks and that was why he had taken more days off. The king then asked him as to what magic tricks he had learned. He replied saying that he can now make canals disappear instantly with his magic powers. All the other ministers started to laugh loudly after Tenali had made this statement, but the king was watching silently. Tenali then said that if needed, he will prove it to everyone. The king agreed to this proposal made by Tenali.
Tenali Raman took the king and the ministers to a particular village in Vijayanagar. Once everyone reached the spot, Tenali said that there were only 3 canals in this village. But actually there were supposed to be 7 canals. The king asked him as to where the other 4 canals had gone. Tenali said that he had not done magic because they were not built in the first place by the minister responsible for its construction.
The king immediately understood what was going on and ordered the arrest of the minister responsible for this. Though the minister pleaded, he was arrested for cheating the kingdom’s people as well as hoarding the kingdom’s wealth. Tenali then said that this was the reason as to why he had taken the extra holiday of 15 days. The king praised Tenali Raman and gave him an award of 1000 gold coins as a reward for his “magic trick”. The king then said that he would make sure that the remaining 4 canals were built in due course of time.
Moral - One must always be sincere in their duty, otherwise they are sure to face the consequences at some point of time.