In the Kingdom of Fools
Original text …IN the Kingdom of Fools, both the king and the minister were idiots. They didn’t want to run things like other kings, so they decided to change night into day and day into night. They ordered that everyone should be awake at night, till their fields and run their businesses only after dark, and go to bed as soon as the sun came up. Anyone who disobeyed would be punished with death. The people did as they were told for fear of death. The king and the minister were delighted at the success of their project. One day a guru and his disciple arrived in the city. It was a beautiful city, it was broad daylight, but there was no one about. Everyone was asleep, not a mouse stirring. Even the cattle had been taught to sleep by day. The two strangers were amazed by what they saw around them and wandered around town till evening, when suddenly the whole town woke up and went about its nightly business.
In different words.. ..The king and his minister in the Kingdom of Fools hit upon a novel, but bizarre idea. They ordered their subjects to do their normal activities in the farm and in the markets after the dusk fell, and rest and sleep in the daytime. Those who defied the diktat faced execution as punishment. No wonder, the kingdom became abuzz with activity at night and fell eerily silent during the sunlight hours. Even the cattle fell in line.
On one occasion, a wandering Sadhu accompanied by his disciple came on a visit to the kingdom. The hustle and bustle in the night’s darkness and the dead silence during daylight hours made them very puzzled and anxious.
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Original text … The two men were hungry. Now that the shops were open, they went to buy some groceries. To their astonishment, they found that everything cost the same, a single duddu — whether they bought a measure of rice or a bunch of bananas, it cost a duddu. The guru and his disciple were delighted. They had never heard of anything like this. They could buy all the food they wanted for a rupee.
In different words .. The duo, feeling hungry, went into a shop to buy some groceries. Here, more surprise awaited them. All items across the board cost the same. There was no difference in rate from one item to another. The unit currency, duddu, could get them any items of their choice. They were baffled.
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Original text …When they had cooked and eaten, the guru realised that this was a kingdom of fools and it wouldn’t be a good idea for them to stay there. “This is no place for us. Let’s go,” he said to his disciple. But the disciple didn’t want to leave the place. Everything was cheap here. All he wanted was good, cheap food. The guru said, in the Kingdom of Fools, it is believed that fools are so dangerous that only very wise people can manage them. Who are the fools in this story? What happens to them? “They are all fools. This won’t last very long, and you can’t tell what they’ll do to you next.”
In other words .. After cooking and eating their meals, the guru reflected on what they had experienced so far. He could foresee that it was a kingdom ruled by a fool, and its fate was doomed. A system like that could not be sustained for very long. He suggested to his disciple that they should leave the place at the earliest.
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Original text ….But the disciple wouldn’t listen to the guru’s wisdom. He wanted to stay. The guru finally gave up and said, “Do what you want. I’m going,” and left. The disciple stayed on, ate his fill every day — bananas and ghee and rice and wheat, and grew fat like a street-side sacred bull.
One bright day, a thief broke into a rich merchant’s house. He had made a hole in the wall and sneaked in, and as he was carrying out his loot, the wall of the old house collapsed on his head and killed him on the spot. His brother ran to the king and complained, “Your Highness, when my brother was pursuing his ancient trade, a wall fell on him and killed him. This merchant is to blame. He should have built a good, strong wall. You must punish the wrongdoer and compensate the family for this injustice.”
In different words … The guru urged his disciple to get ready to depart from the place, but the latter didn’t heed his guru’s pleadings. In disgust, the guru left the kingdom alone leaving the stubborn disciple behind. Soon, splurging on the cheap delicious food ingredients available, the disciple gained wight fast.
On one occasion, right at the middle of the day, two burglar brothers made a hole in the wall of a rich merchant and sneaked in to carry out their loot. Sadly for them, the weak wall came crashing down and fell on the head of one of them. The hit was fatal. The survivor escaped from the place and approached the king with his grievance against the merchant. He argued before the king that the merchant must be brought to book for building a weak wall. ‘He should have built a strong enough wall to make it hole-proof,’ said the complainant. He sought due punishment for the merchant and suitable compensation for the dead brother’s family.
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Original text … The king said, “Justice will be done. Don’t worry,” and at once summoned the owner of the house.
When the merchant arrived, the king questioned him. “What’s your name?” “Such and Such, Your Highness.”
“Were you at home when the dead man burgled your house?”
“Yes, My Lord. He broke in and the wall was weak. It fell on him.”
“The accused pleads guilty. Your wall killed this man’s brother. You have murdered a man. We have to punish you.”
“Lord,” said the helpless merchant, “I didn’t put up the wall. It’s really the fault of the man who built the wall.
He didn’t build it right. You should punish him.”
“Who is that?”
“My Lord, this wall was built in my father’s time. I know the man. He’s an old man now. He lives nearby.”
The king sent out messengers to bring in the bricklayer who had built the wall. They brought him, tied hand and foot.
“You there, did you build this man’s wall in his father’s time?”
“Yes, My Lord, I did.” “What kind of a wall is this that you built? It has fallen on a poor man and killed him. You’ve murdered him. We have to punish you by death.”
In different words (In indirect form)….Heeding the plea of the dead burglar’s brother, the king summoned the merchant who owned the house in question. The merchant, hearing the death sentence hanging on him, cleverly shifted the blame to the mason who had built the wall during his father’s time. The old mason soon appeared in the court. He heard the king’s pronouncement about a possible death penalty.
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Original text … Before the king could order the execution, the poor bricklayer pleaded, “Please listen to me before you give your orders. It’s true I built this wall and it was no good. But that was because my mind was not on it. I remember very well a dancing girl who was going up and down that street all day with her anklets jingling, and I couldn’t keep my eyes or my mind on the wall I was building. You must get that dancing girl. I know where she lives.” “You’re right. The case deepens. We must look into it. It is not easy to judge such complicated cases. Let’s get that dancer, wherever she is.” The dancing girl, now an old woman, came trembling to the court. “Did you walk up and down that street many years ago, while this poor man was building a wall? Did you see him?” “Yes, My Lord, I remember it very well.”
“So you did walk up and down, with your anklets jingling. You were young and you distracted him, so he built a bad wall.
In different words …The bricklayer made a frantic appeal to the king to reconsider his death penalty. Frightened to the core, the old man narrated how the sight of a dancing girl in the streets distracted him from his work leading to the poor quality of construction that led to collapse of the wall. He reasoned that the ebullient dame was the real culprit, not he. The old man offered to trace the girl, if the king wanted.
Soon, the culprit girl looking like a frail old woman after long years of life appeared in the court. When asked by the king, the old woman admitted that she did dance back and forth in the street on the fateful day. The king lost no time to fix the blame on her for indulging in exuberant dancing that eventually led to poor quality construction. The old woman agreed that the memory of that day remained afresh in her mind.
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Original text …It has fallen on a poor burglar and killed him. You’ve killed an innocent man. You’ll have to be punished.” She thought for a minute and said, “My Lord, wait. I know now why I was walking up and down that street. I had given some gold to the goldsmith to make some jewellery for me. He was a lazy scoundrel. He made so many excuses, said he would give it now and he would give it then and so on all day. He made me walk up and down to his house a dozen times. That was when this bricklayer saw me. It’s not my fault, My Lord, it’s the damned goldsmith’s fault.” “Poor thing, she’s absolutely right,” thought the king, weighing the evidence. “We’ve got the real culprit at last. Get the goldsmith, wherever he is hiding. At once!”
The king’s bailiffs searched for the goldsmith, who was hiding in a corner of his shop. When he heard the accusation against him, he had his own story to tell.
“My Lord,” he said, “I’m a poor goldsmith. It’s true I made this dancer come many times to my door. I gave her excuses because I couldn’t finish making her jewellery before I finished the rich merchant’s orders. They had a wedding coming, and they wouldn’t wait. You know how impatient rich men are!”
“Who is this rich merchant who kept you from finishing this poor woman’s jewellery, made her walk up and down, which distracted this bricklayer, which made a mess of his wall, which has now fallen on an innocent man and killed him? Can you name him?”
In different words …….. The king declared the old woman guilty for having been at the root of a fatal accident. ‘She needs to be brought to book,’ said the king. The woman on the dock prayed to the king to give her a patient hearing, so that she could explain why she was jumping around so wildly in the street that day. She said a goldsmith had repeatedly defaulted in his promise to deliver some ornaments to her. He cited umpteen excuses for his delay. The old woman, then a young damsel, vented her anger against the dodgy goldsmith by pacing the street with anger. The king summoned the goldsmith, who appeared in the court promptly. When confronted with the old woman’s charges against him, the goldsmith submitted that he had been overburdened by a rich merchant’s large order for supply of jewellery items needed for an upcoming marriage ceremony. As a result of the rich customer’s unrelenting pressure, the young girl’s (now a woman standing beside her) got delayed very long. So, he pleaded his default was not intentional but borne out of professional considerations.
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Original text …The goldsmith named the merchant, and he was none other than the original owner of the house whose wall had fallen. Now justice had come full circle, thought the king, back to the merchant. When he was rudely summoned back to the court, he arrived crying, “It wasn’t me but my father who ordered the jewellery! He’s dead! I’m innocent!” But the king consulted his minister and ruled decisively: “It’s true your father is the true murderer. He’s dead, but somebody must be punished in his place. You’ve inherited everything from that criminal father of yours, his riches as well as his sins. I knew at once, even when I first set eyes on you, that you were at the root of this horrible crime. You must die.” And he ordered a new stake to be made ready for the execution. As the servants sharpened the stake and got it ready for the final impaling of the criminal, it occurred to the minister that the rich merchant was somehow too thin to be properly executed on the stake. He appealed to the king’s common sense. The king too worried about it. “What shall we do?” he said, when suddenly it struck him that all they needed to do was to find a man fat enough to fit the stake. The servants were immediately sent all over the town looking for a man who would fit the stake, and their eyes fell on the disciple who had fattened himself for months on bananas and rice and wheat and ghee.
In different words …The goldsmith named the merchant who had pushed him hard to supply the ordered jewllery items in time. The court proceedings took a curious turn when it became known that the culprit wealthy merchant was none other than the house owner whose wall had collapsed on the burglar killing him on the spot. The investigation had reached a full circle. The king summoned the merchant, who appeared with a fervent appeal to the king to review his verdict. The merchant revealed that it was his father, not he, who had got the wall construction work done. The father had long departed from this world. The king sought counsel from his minister for a brief period and returned to pronounce his death penalty on the merchant. He told the merchant that he had inherited both the burden of wealth and the burden of crime from his dead father. So, he deserved the punishment.
The king ordered the servants to arrange the pointed stake, through which the merchant had to be impaled to death. A few moments later, the minister pointed to the fact that the merchant had a very thin and wiry body. So, the death penalty through the use of a pointed stake wouldn’t be possible. The king agreed instantly, and asked the attendants to go and look around for a bulky man as a substitute. Obviously, such a man would have indulged in feasted on rice, ghee, banana etc.
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Original text … “What have I done wrong? I’m innocent. I’m a sanyasi!” he cried. “That may be true. But it’s the royal decree that we should find a man fat enough to fit the stake,” they said, and carried him to the place of execution. He remembered his wise guru’s words: “This is a city of fools. You don’t know what they will do next.” While he was waiting for death, he prayed to his guru in his heart, asking him to hear his cry wherever he was. The guru saw everything in a vision; he had magic powers, he could see far, and he could see the future as he could see the present and the past. He arrived at once to save his disciple, who had got himself into such a scrape through love of food. As soon as he arrived, he scolded the disciple and told him something in a whisper. Then he went to the king and addressed him, “O wisest of kings, who is greater? The guru or the disciple?” “Of course, the guru. No doubt about it. Why do you ask?” “Then put me to the stake first. Put my disciple to death after me.”
In different words … The disciple of the sadhu was apprehended and brought to the court. Flummoxed and gripped with fear, he pleaded not guilty saying that he was a sanyasi and had little involvement in worldly affairs. The king’s men said that they were just executing the king’s decree and couldn’t give the obese man any relief. His guru’s parting words that the city was ruled by fools came back to his mind. He made a frenetic appeal to his guru to come to his rescue to ward off the death penalty. Moved by the appeal of his disciple, the guru used his divine powers to reach the spot where the execution was to take place. The guru had extraordinary powers to peep into both the future and the past. The compassionate guru appeared before the king to claim that a guru takes precedence over his disciple in all matters. So, he urged the king to send him to the stakes first before the hapless disciple faces death.
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Original text … When the disciple heard this, he understood and began to clamour, “Me first! You brought me here first! Put me to death first, not him!” The guru and the disciple now got into a fight about who should go first. The king was puzzled by this behaviour. He asked the guru, “Why do you want to die? We chose him because we needed a fat man for the stake.” “You shouldn’t ask me such questions. Put me to death first,” replied the guru. “Why? There’s some mystery here. As a wise man you must make me understand.” “Will you promise to put me to death if I tell you?” asked the guru. The king gave him his solemn word. The guru took him aside, out of the servants’ earshot, and whispered to him, “Do you know why we want to die right now, the two of us? We’ve been all over the world but we’ve never found a city like this or a king like you. That stake is the stake of the god of justice. It’s new, it has never had a criminal on it. Whoever dies on it first will be reborn as the king of this country. And whoever goes next will be the future minister of this country. We’re sick of our ascetic life. It would be nice to enjoy ourselves as king and minister for a while. Now keep your word, My Lord, and put us to death. Me first, remember?”
In different words … The guru’s voluntary offer to shed his life immersed the disciple in deep distraught. He began to vehemently plead with his guru not to sacrifice his life in that manner. The guru remained unmoved. Soon, the duo began to bitterly argue over who should suffer the death sentence. Seeing the bickering between them, the king felt confused. He asked the guru the reason for his offering himself for the death penalty, especially because the verdict specified a fat person to undergo the punishment. The guru persisted with his desire to suffer the death penalty before his disciple did so. The king was keen to know why a wise man like the guru offered to die before his disciple.
The guru offered to disclose the secret to the king if he agreed to sentence him to death before his disciple. The king agreed to abide by the request of the guru.
The guru took the king to a distance so that the people there couldn’t overhear them. The guru asked the king if he really was interested to know the stand taken by him to face the death penalty ahead of the disciple.
The guru said that he had gone around the world with his disciple and had acquired a lot of wisdom. He said that the stake had not been used before to take anyone’s life. This meant that the first victim would be reborn as the king’s successor to rule over the kingdom next. The guru said that he and his disciple no longer wanted to live a spartan life. Having become sick of it, they wanted to enjoy worldly pleasures in the next birth. The guru then insisted to be sentenced to death first, ahead of his disciple.
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Original text…The king was now thrown into deep thought. He didn’t want to lose the kingdom to someone else in the next round of life. He needed time. So he ordered the execution postponed to the next day and talked in secret with his minister. “It’s not right for us to give over the kingdom to others in the next life. Let’s go on the stake ourselves and we’ll be reborn as king and minister again. Holy men do not tell lies,” he said, and the minister agreed. So he told the executioners, “We’ll send the criminals tonight. When the first man comes to you, put him to death first. Then do the same to the second man. Those are my orders. Don’t make any mistake.” That night, the king and his minister went secretly to the prison, released the guru and the disciple, disguised themselves as the two, and as arranged beforehand with loyal servants, were taken to the stake and promptly executed.
In different words …. The guru’s daring disclosure left the king utterly perplexed. The lure of the throne was too strong for him to forgo even in his next life on earth. To be able to think through the new situation, he ordered the stake punishment to be deferred till the next day. He confided with his minister about ways to preempt a loss of the throne. The king and his minister believed the words of the sadhu, and decided to forego their own lives, so that they are reborn to enjoy the throne for another spell in the world.
The king and the minister went into the prison and released the convicted sadhu and his disciple. They ordered the servants to strictly abide by their order and send the first person approaching them to the stake, followed by a similar punishment for the second person. They disguised themselves as the sadhu and the disciple and approached the executioners. The latter obeyed the royal diktat and sent the duo to death.
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Original text ….When the bodies were taken down to be thrown to crows and vultures the people panicked. They saw before them the dead bodies of the king and the minister. The city was in confusion. All night they mourned and discussed the future of the kingdom. Some people suddenly thought of the guru and the disciple and caught up with them as they were preparing to leave town unnoticed. “We people need a king and a minister,” said someone. Others agreed. They begged the guru and the disciple to be their king and their minister. It didn’t take many arguments to persuade the disciple, but it took longer to persuade the guru. They finally agreed to rule the kingdom of the foolish king and the silly minister, on the condition that they could change all the old laws. From then on, night would again be night and day would again be day, and you could get nothing for a duddu. It became like any other place.
In different words …..An ominous funk descended on the citizens of the kingdom when they say the dead bodies of their king and minister being discarded for feeding crows and vultures. They worried about the administration of their kingdom that had become headless overnight. The idea of inviting the guru and his disciple to assume the responsibilities of king and minister was floated by someone. Without much debate, it was accepted unanimously. The people approached the guru and his disciple, who acceded to the public request readily. The first step the new rulers took was to reverse the bizarre order of the previous king to make the night active and the day placid. So, normalcy in day-to-day life returned to normal.
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QUESTIONS and ANSWERS
- What are the two strange things the guru and his disciple find in the Kingdom of Fools?
Answer .. The daily routine followed by human beings universally was upended. The citizens did all their work at night and rested in the day. The second strange practice was the uniformity of prices across the board. There were no costly items or cheap items. Everything was priced the same.
- Why does the disciple decide to stay in the Kingdom of Fools? Is it a good idea?
Ans.. The availability of the choices; grocery items like ghee and banana at the price of very ordinary items like salt and rice triggered a passion for indulgence in culinary delights in the disciple’s mind. He decided to stay put in the Kingdom of Fools defying his guru. It was a stupid idea.
- Name all the people who are tried in the king’s court, and give the reasons for their trial.
Ans .. The mason was the first victim of the royal court’s anger. He was accused of building a weak wall. The second accused was an old woman, who during her youthful years, had one danced up and down the village street. This had distracted the mansion leading to his poor workmanship. The third was the goldsmith who had repeatedly failed to supply the ordered jewellery item to the young lady leading to her frayed temper and her wild dance in the street. The next accused was the merchant who had placed a big order on the goldsmith. His fault was the placing of a big order on the goldsmith and pressurizing him for early delivery. The next culprit was the merchant’s late father who had got the construction work done through the mason. The last culprit was the disciple who was a good fit for the capital punishment due to her oversized body.
- Who is the real culprit according to the king? Why does he escape punishment?
Answer.. The real culprit according to the king was the merchant, but his frail body was not viable for death sentence using the stake. So, he escaped the punishment.
- What are the Guru’s words of wisdom? When does the disciple remember them?
Ans .. The guru had told the disciple that they had landed in a ‘Kingdom of Fools’ and needed to flee the fraught place at the earliest. The disciple remembered these words when he was handed the death sentence.
- How does the guru manage to save his disciple’s life?
Ans .. The guru deliberately insisted upon being sent to the stakes first, ahead of the disciple. This cleverly planned strategy led to the release of the disciple.
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