An astrologer sells ‘wisdom water.’ Tenali pours truth into the same cup—and proves knowledge isn’t a beverage.
The court astrologer arrived with a brass pot and a promise: one sip and the tongue would flower into eloquence. Courtiers queued with purses and vanity. Tenali watched, amused and a little hungry.
He bought a cup, tasted theatrically, and recited a couplet so crisp the rafters seemed to nod. “Behold!” the astrologer cried. “Wisdom water!”
Tenali borrowed the pot, tipped it over, and refilled it at the palace well. “Fresh batch,” he said, handing it to a stable boy dusted with hay. The boy drank and spoke exactly as boys do about saddles and sun.
“Observe,” Tenali told the emperor. “The miracle lives not in the cup but in the practice.” He lifted the pot; a paste clung to the bottom—jaggery and spice, the diet of deception.
The emperor frowned. “Shut the stall.”
Tenali kept the pot, scrubbed it clean, and set it in the school. Children drank plain water before lessons and still learned to argue beautifully by noon. The astrologer found employment reading weather, which proved a kinder use of stars than of pockets.
A new proverb made the rounds: “If wisdom is sold, check the cup for syrup.” The pot sat in the classroom window, catching light and dust—the honest ingredients of learning.
