The emperor’s stallion refused every remedy—until Tenali tied hunger to a simple rope of cause and effect.
The stable reeked of remedies: saffron mash, priestly smoke, even lullabies chanted off-key. Ministers lined up to lecture the horse on civic duty. It blinked, bored. When the emperor’s patience neared the whip, Tenali bowed. “Give me a rope of jute, a quiet stall—and seven days without advice.”
He looped one end of the rope to a trough, the other loosely around the horse’s muzzle. He didn’t beg or scold. He left. Hunger wandered in. When the stallion nosed the rope, the trough slid an inch closer. A tug brought a rattle. Another tug, another promise. By day three, the horse had trained itself. Tenali visited only to refill the grain, nod, and vanish.
On the seventh morning, the emperor appeared, ringed with skeptics. Tenali lifted the latch. The horse tugged; the trough obeyed; the stallion ate as if it had invented food.
“Which mantra?” a minister demanded.
“The oldest,” Tenali said. “If—then. If the horse acts, then the world answers. If we act, our problems do too.”
The emperor laughed, and the priests coughed into their sleeves. Tenali untied the rope and handed it to the stablemaster. “Keep it,” he said. “For animals, for machines—and sometimes for men.”
The stall ate; the court learned; the rope stayed—a quiet policy coiled on a hook.
