One day a Brahmin by the name of
Sevaram asked Birbal for help. He said that his forefathers were great
Sanskrit scholars and that people used to respectfully refer to them as
Panditji. He said that he had no money nor need for wealth, he was content
living a simple life. But he had just one wish. He wished people
would refer to him as Panditji too. He asked Birbal how he could achieve
this.
Birbal said that the task was fairly
simple. If the Brahmin followed his advice word for word, this task could
be achieved. Birbal advised the Brahmin to shout at anyone who would call
him Panditji from now on.
Now the children who lived on the
same street as the Brahmin did not like him since he scolded them often.
They were just waiting for an opportunity to get back at him. Birbal told
the children that the Brahmin would get really irritated if they would
start calling him Panditji. The children started calling him Panditji and
the Brahmin as advised by Birbal started shouting at them. The children
spread the word to all the other children in the neighborhood that Sevaram
hated being called Panditji, so they in turn all started calling him Panditji.
After a while, Sevaram got tired of scolding them but everyone already
was used to calling him Panditji. Hence the game was over but the name
stuck.