The idyllic peace of the kingdom was shattered suddenly one year by a series of daring burglaries. The thieves were ingenious and daring, and many of the prominent and wealthy citizens who lived in the capital became their targets. The rural rich were not spared either. The police had no clue to apprehending the burglars: they seemed to materialize out of thin air, strike in the least expected part of the kingdom, and then vanish again, only to re-appear elsewhere. They were so skilled that nobody had ever seen them on any of their heists. It was rumoured that they were skilled magicians who cast a sleeping spell on the inmates of a house before they looted it.

This went on for a few months, with the police making no headway in bringing the culprits to book. The people started living in constant fear of the burglars, and distrust took root and grew, weakening society. Meanwhile, the police force, feeling utterly helpless and humiliated, began to lose its morale. The king, observing the stirrings of unhappiness among his subjects, was vexed that he was unable to find a solution to this problem.

Then one day, the thieves grew even bolder. They broke into the royal treasury and made off with the royal sceptre, a diamond- and gem- encrusted heirloom of the ruling family and the kingdom itself. This time however, one of the guards caught them in the act of escaping, and confronted them. He pinned one of the burglars to the floor, when he was struck on his head from behind, causing him to lose consciousness. So nobody was caught. The men had been wearing masks, and in the darkness, he had no further clue to the identity of the criminals, except that the last thing he had heard before fading out of consciousness, was the man he had pinned down exclaiming, “Thanks, Srini!” Therefore, the man who had struck him must have been called Srini-something.

The king was livid with rage. This time the burglars had gone so far as to trifle with royal honour. By breaking into the treasury and then stealing, of all things, the royal scepter, it was as if they were thumbing their noses not just at the police force, but personally at the king himself. This crime had to be punished to avenge the honour of the throne – and the whole kingdom. But all that he had for a clue to the identity of the burglar, was the shortened name, ‘Srini’.

So the king ordered the police to round up all those in the kingdom with names that began with ‘Srini’. The next day, a thousand Srini-s were presented to the king in court. There were Srinivas’s, Srinivasans, Srinidhis, Srinityas…. Among the crowd were men, women and children, giants and dwarfs, beggars, teachers, students, doctors, lawyers, ascetics, businessmen, housewives, and wastrels… people of all hues and ages ranging from two months to eighty eight years. And amongst them, one was a daring burglar.

The king addressed the large crowd of Srinis and those of their families who had also come, anxious to hear what the king had in mind. “As all of you know, one amongst you is a reckless criminal who dared insult the throne and the whole kingdom. It is to this criminal that I address my words. Come forward and surrender, for you have no way out of custody. Surrender and confess who your accomplices were, in your heinous crimes. I will give you a day to do so. Since I do not want to release the criminal, I have no option but to incarcerate all of you until he or she comes forward.” He turned to the guards. “Put them in prison and bring them back to my court tomorrow!” There was a murmur of disbelief from the assembled citizens. Then the minister spoke up on their behalf. “My Lord, out of these thousand citizens, there are little children and women, aged and the infirm of health. Spending even a day in prison is harsh for one of these, if innocent. I pray that you release all such of the suspects, on grounds of compassion.”

“My dear minister, I have always valued your wisdom and counsel. But here, you ask me to make an exception that is not justified. Since the guard did not hear or see the figure of the burglar called Srini, how do we have any surety that it was a man, not too young nor too old? Besides, how can I determine any age that is a cutoff for freedom? If a sixteen-year-old can commit a crime, what prevents a fifteen-year-old from doing the same? And if you go on so, what age can we choose as a cutoff for innocence? What if the culprit should feign infirmity or state his or her age wrongly to be let off? So I will not change my directive. They shall all spend the night in prison.”

And so they were all led away. Nobody came forward that day to own up to the burglary. Since stealing the royal sceptre would condemn the thief and his accomplices to life in prison, if not execution outright, it was no surprise that nobody came forward. They were brought back to the court the next day.

The king was madder still at being so near, yet so far from identifying the thief. He thundered, “So, you crook, you think you can get away from me by lying low, do you? I swear I will not let you go without bringing you to justice! I will have your head and make an example of you to all the rest of your gang! Let nobody ever dare break the law of the land again! I will give you three more days’ grace period. If you do not come forward by then, I will execute all thousand suspects so you will die anyway! If you had any sense of humanity, you would come forward before that to spare the lives of all the other innocents.”

All in the court were aghast. Surely, the king could not mean what he said? Surely, he was just threatening to scare the thief? The thousand suspects then pleaded with the king. “Your Majesty, we know one amongst us is a criminal. However, other than him, we are nine hundred and ninety nine law-abiding and loyal subjects. We plead with you not to punish us all simply because we share a similar-sounding name with the criminal. We were named so by our parents and so are here for absolutely no fault of ours. As a demonstration of our loyalty to you and a gesture of goodwill, we promise that we will all contribute, in whatever way each of us can, to gifting you with a brand-new sceptre. The jewellers and goldsmiths amongst us have gladly agreed to take on the job of making it, and assure you that the new sceptre will be at least as dazzling as the old one, if not more so. Please let us go.”

“My dear citizens, much as it pains me to see the innocent amongst you suffer, my hands are tied in this matter. It is no longer a matter of simply replacing the lost sceptre; it is a matter of avenging the royal honour and making the burglars pay for their crime, to deter future criminals. The sacrifice of a thousand subjects will result in a better life for all the rest. Hence I am sorry, but you will have to go to prison and await your fate to be decided in the next three days.” And the thousand suspects were led away to prison.

The kingdom awaited further developments at the court with bated breath. Two days passed. Nobody confessed. On the third morning, the king ordered that preparations for execution of the thousand prisoners commence; if by sundown, the thief had not confessed, the execution was to proceed. The business of the court seemed unusually stifling that day to all, and time wore on slowly, torturously.

In the early afternoon, as the king was listening to petitions on different subjects from different villages, there was a commotion outside the courtroom, and the next instant, the queen came rushing in, in tears. She was so upset that she was unable to speak, and sobbing loudly. The king immediately suspended the court business and tried to console her, to find out what was wrong.

“My dear queen, pray dry your eyes and cease spilling those precious pearls on the earth. I am anxious to hear what causes you to cry, so that I may set it right, and see you smile again.” But the queen continued sobbing helplessly.

At this the king got even more agitated. “O queen, you are dearer to me than life itself, and to see you cry so breaks my heart. Tell me who it is that has dared eclipse the sun of your smiling countenance. I promise he or she shall be appropriately punished for the wicked deed.”

The queen recovered her composure at this, and said, “Thank you, My Lord. Your words soothe the pain in my heart. My poor, innocent Mayur has been killed!” And fresh tears clouded her eyes. Mayur was the queen’s favourite pet peacock. He lived with his family in a special pea-house, just outside the queen’s palace, and was a common sight as he freely roamed the royal gardens and palaces, strutting about daintily with his plume held high and his elaborate, beautiful train of feathers trailing him.

The king was shocked. All his subjects knew how dear the peacock was to his queen, and the bird even wore the royal insignia on his back, as a symbol of royal protection. Who had dared kill the bird? “Whoever the culprit be, my dear queen, be assured that he is condemned to certain death, just as he brought upon your poor Mayur. Now tell me how it happened.”

The queen continued, “As is my habit, I waited for him at midday, so I could feed him his lunch, but for the first time, he did not come. Worried, I went to look for him around the palace and gardens. Finally, I found him, lying on the ground in the horses’ corral, bleeding copiously. He breathed his last even as I held him in my lap and called out for help. He had been stamped to death by one of your horses.” She paused, upset afresh at the memory.

“I am terribly sorry to hear about the death, my queen, but it is patently obvious it was an unfortunate accident, was it not? Not anyone’s failure of duty. Who then, can be held responsible?”

“Why, the horse who did it, My Lord! The horse should be punished for having trampled poor Mayur to death!”

“The horse?! But what does a horse know? The poor horse probably did not realise until too late, what was under its feet. But even if we wanted to punish it, is there anyone who witnessed the incident so we know what happened and which horse was responsible?”

“None, My Lord. But it was no accident; it was indeed a heartless horse that trampled him so! All the horses in that corral should be executed to ensure the guilty one is punished.”

“O my dear queen, have you taken leave of your senses? Do you want me to destroy all the magnificent royal horses for the crime one of them committed, perhaps unknowingly? Do not be so heartless! That would not bring Mayur back to life anyway.”

“No, it wouldn’t. But avenging his death is the only way his soul will rest in peace, and I want to make sure that he is at peace in the other world. I see that your love of your horses deters you from fulfilling the promise you made to punish the guilty, just a few minutes ago.”

The king was desperate. He pleaded, “O queen, I will have a marble memorial erected for Mayur and we can perform his last rites so as to ensure he rises to heaven. But please do not ask for the execution of all the horses.” Seeing that the queen was unrelenting, he tried a last hope, almost in tears. “You know how gentle a horse Pushpak is. He could never have done this, even unknowingly. And I owe him my life for saving it more than once on the battlefield. You know he is as a brother to me. I will do as you say for all the others, but I beg of you, do not ask for his life.”

“It is now upto you, My Lord, to decide if you want to keep your word or not. I have your entire court as my witnesses to the promise you made.”

And the queen left the court, leaving the king in an agonizing dilemma. He did not dare refuse: he had indeed given her his word. But oh, how foolish she was to ask for this kind of revenge! She had no idea how important those horses were to the military strength of the kingdom. And how could she be so heartless… wanting to kill all those horses that had loyally served him more than once on the battlefield…. and Pushpak… the very thought of it wrung the king’s insides in a torturous slow motion and turned them inside out. That would be as treacherous as stabbing one’s brother in the back! And all to what purpose? The dead bird would not return… oh, why were women such unreasonable creatures?

The king helplessly lamented, “Woe is me, my minister! What is this destructive madness that has afflicted the queen? What does she understand of the importance of those horses to our army? How can one ever reason with a woman? What will I do now? I am damned if I keep my word, and damned if I don’t!”

“My Lord, despair not. I think I can make the queen see reason.”

“You can, wise minister? Hurry then, and work your magic! Bring me the good news that she takes back her demand for avenging Mayur’s death, and I will grant you anything you wish! You will have saved me from the sin of killing a brother!”

So the minister left the court and returned in a little while. “It is done, My Lord. Her Royal Highness has annulled her request for vengeance.”

The king was overjoyed. He asked the minister to name his reward.

“Set free the thousand prisoners that are to be executed today, My Lord.”

“O minister, there are many treasures and privileges that you could ask for, for yourself or for those dear to you. But it disappoints me that you would rather ask for the obstruction of justice. A criminal deserves to be punished in the interest of society. Ask for something else.”

“I do not wish for anything else, My Lord. Grant me this if you wish, else nothing.”

“I have given you my word, o minister, so I will grant it and release the prisoners. But it is strange that you are supporting crime in the kingdom; the thief will only go back to his gang and they will strike again.”

“My Lord, that may be true. But just as executing the horses of the royal army en masse would have weakened our military might greatly, so would execution of nine hundred ninety nine innocents have weakened your rule immeasurably. True, you would have gotten rid of one thief, but at one stroke, you would have also lost the loyalty of the families and well-wishers of all the nine hundred ninety nine innocent citizens. Moreover, henceforth, all citizens would have lived in fear of being punished by you for a crime they did not commit – and honest citizens’ fear of the king is but the death-knell for his rule.”

The king finally understood the minister’s wisdom. He released the thousand Srinis and apologized for the unjust imprisonment. The prisoners and their families were overjoyed, and praised the king’s justice. True to their word, within a short time, they collectively presented the king with a brand-new sceptre, even more beautiful than the one that had been stolen. The minister and queen later confessed to the king that Mayur was alive and well; they had enacted the episode of his death only to achieve the prisoners’ release. The king, by then convinced of the wisdom of their deeds, thanked them for opening his eyes.

Over the next few years, under the supervision of the minister, the police force of the kingdom was greatly strengthened: new honest, intelligent and able-bodied people were recruited, and intensively trained, and corrupt policemen thrown out. At the same time, citizens’ voluntary patrols were formed, and trained to maintain vigilance on suspicious movements of strange people in their localities. Gradually, as this happened, the burglaries decreased, then stopped, and finally, peace was re-established in the kingdom. The king ruled wisely and justly for many years, loved by his subjects.

- Archana Purushotham