Emperor Akbar and Birbal were the best of friends, but like all good friends they loved to tease each other. Akbar was forever hunting for a chance to score a point over his quick-witted minister, and Birbal was forever slipping out of reach at the very last moment.
Now, Birbal had one habit the emperor liked to scold him about: he enjoyed chewing tobacco leaves. The royal physician frowned at it, and Akbar, who never touched the stuff, teased Birbal about it whenever he could. “A wise man with an unwise habit,” he would say, shaking his head grandly, and Birbal would only smile and change the subject.
One evening, the two of them rode out beyond the city walls to inspect the farmlands. The fields stretched green and gold in the setting sun. Presently they passed a field of tall tobacco plants, their broad leaves swaying in the breeze. And there, right at the edge of the field, stood a donkey.
The donkey sniffed at the tobacco leaves, wrinkled its nose, turned its head away, and wandered off to munch on plain grass instead. Akbar's eyes lit up. Here, at last, was the perfect arrow to shoot at Birbal!
“Look there, Birbal!” said the emperor, pointing with his riding whip and grinning from ear to ear. “Do you see that? Even a donkey refuses to touch tobacco. It sniffed your favourite leaves and walked away. What do you say to that, my friend?”
The courtiers riding behind tittered. Birbal glanced at the donkey, then at the emperor, and replied with a calm and gentle bow, “You are absolutely right, Jahanpanah. Only a donkey refuses tobacco.”
For a moment there was silence. Then the meaning landed, and Akbar's own laughter rang out across the fields, louder than anyone's. His arrow had turned in the air and come straight back at him! “Birbal,” he said, wiping his eyes, “teasing you is like throwing a ball at a wall — it always comes back faster.”
And though the emperor lost that little battle of wits, the story of the donkey and the tobacco field travelled through the bazaars of Agra, and people chuckle over it to this day.