In plain words
He was delighted. ‘You thought they were women? Did you really see them as women?’ he said. ‘Have you gone mad, Rāmakṛṣṇa! Women look like women. Would we take them for men instead of women?’ he said. ‘Aha! You took them for women! I am Rādhā, Rādhā!’ And in that same way he was lost in rapture. Rāmakṛṣṇa was one who attained Divinity in such innocence.
But Tenāli Rāmakṛṣṇa was not like that. He brought in ingenuity as the need arose. One day in the court Kṛṣṇadevarāya gave Rāmakṛṣṇa a great reward. In those days there were none of these rupee notes, five-rupee notes and ten-rupee notes. It was all silver rupees. He had three or four bundles tied up, put in bags, and sent with soldiers along with Rāmakṛṣṇa. How were rupees measured in those days? They would stack the rupees ten at a time, one on top of another. They would set just one stack. They would make all the others up to that height. If one stood higher, they would take a ruler and strike it off, and all came out level. For those who would count them as so many hundreds, counting was very hard. They would put the rupees in sacks and tie them up like rice or paddy. Thieves saw these three bundles being carried off. Those who had seen this came in right at midnight, while they were asleep. Only the two of them, husband and wife, were in the house. Three or four thieves came. Why? Because there were so many bundles, you see! To carry them away. How could one man catch them all? How was he to catch them? What device would keep the money from being lost? He thought it over. If we shout ‘Thieves, thieves!’, they may fall upon us. They may hurt us. Rāmakṛṣṇa saw the thieves. He woke his wife. ‘Somehow I feel like vomiting. Bring water at once,’ he said. He said it loudly, so that the thieves would hear. They must not get the idea that he had got up to catch them. Something was churning in his stomach and that was why he had got up, the thieves thought; and when he got up, there was a bitter-gourd creeper by the well in the backyard. The bitter-gourd creeper had grown very thick and tangled. He came to the well as if in great distress, about to vomit. The thieves saw him coming. They crept into the bitter-gourd bush. He kept watching where they had hidden too. Pouring water into his mouth, saying it was … as if he were about to vomit, spitting it all over the faces of those in the bush; so the wife drew water from the well, and he poured all the water she drew into his mouth and dashed it on their faces. He kept dashing it like this for half an hour, and his wife grew angry. ‘If someone feels like vomiting, do they wash with so much water! Why are you putting me to so much trouble?’ she said. ‘What is all this trouble to you? If it is so much trouble for the wife I married, look how patient those strangers are while I splash so much on them!’ he said.