Once King Krishna Deva Raya ordered that the kingdom of Vijayanagar would have a food festival. The city was cleaned up. Lights were put up on buildings and street poles. Flowers adorned the palace and house gates. Throughout the capital, people were in a festive mood.
King Krishna Deva Raya announced, ‘To celebrate the food festival, the sweet shops must sell colourful sweets. They should be attractive to look at and good to eat.’
After the announcement, the sweet shop owners also got busy in making colourful sweets.
For some days, Tenali Rama Krishna was not seen in the royal court. The king sent guards to search for him and bring him to the court, but they could not find him. They went to the court and reported this to the king. The King grew worried and asked the guards to search more carefully. After some days, the guards found Tenali Rama Krishna. They went and informed the king.
‘Your Majesty, we have found Tenali Rama Krishna. He has opened a shop of colour dyes and spends the whole day dyeing people’s clothes. When we asked him to accompany us, he refused to come with us.’
At this the king got very angry. He said to the guards,‘I order you to bring Tenali Rama Krishna here as soon as possible. If he does not come with you, bring him forcefully.’
So the guards obeyed the king’s order and fetched Tenali Rama Krishna forcefully.
Thus he was brought to the royal court. The king enquired, ‘Tenali Rama Krishna, why did you refuse to come and see me? And what has made you open this colour dye shop? You have a good position in the royal court which takes care of all your needs.’
Tenali Rama Krishna said, ‘Your Majesty, I wanted to dye my clothes for the food festival. I wanted to complete the dyeing quickly before all the dyes were used up.’
‘Why do you think that all the colour dyes would be used up? Is everyone dyeing their clothes?’
‘No, your Majesty. Actually, after your orders for preparing colourful sweets, the sweet shop owners are busy buying the colour dyes for dyeing sweets. If they buy all the dyes, how can I dye my clothes? So I decided to set up a shop, so that I would have all the dyes I need.’
At this the king realized his mistake. He said, ‘So you are trying to tell me that using my orders as an excuse, the sweet shop owners are using cheap, harmful dyes in their sweets. They know that they must use the permitted food colours only. I hereby take back the orders for colourful sweets. Those sweets shop owners who have used harmful chemical dyes in sweets will be severely punished.’
Thus once again Tenali Rama Krishna saved the lives of people of Vijayanagar through an intelligent plan.
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