Once, for a national festival the king asked everyone to sell coloured sweets that would look attractive and good to eat.
Hearing this every sweetshop got busy in the process. One day when the king asked about Tenali, he was nowhere to be found.
It took some days for the guards to find him and they came back reporting that he had opened a colour and dye shop and had refused to come.
On later being summoned in the court Tenali said that he wanted to dye all his clothes before the festival as the colour would soon finish with the sweetshops using it for their sweets.
The king realized that the sweetshops were using harmful and cheap cloth dyeing colours for the festivals. He imme-diately took back his orders for the health and safety of his people.
