The indigo and the cotton
The monsoon had brought him enough water to grow and be as thick as possible, and the wind was lightly caressing his leaves. The indigo plant stood proudly beside a crop of cotton. The cotton was grown by the family who lived in the hut that could be seen farthest away.
One afternoon, while the indigo plant was admiring its own leaves and arranging its branches, two strange looking creatures stopped in front of it, with twisted horns, a lock of hair under the beard and some teeth that always moved from right to left and vice versa. It was not even clear who the appearances were, no one seemed to hear them. When there was almost nothing left of it, he saw a shadow approaching and shouting at the two apparitions, frightening them.
The Indigofera Tinctoria Bush was sad and complained that not much of its beauty remained. It sprouted a few flowers and then some pods, and when the monsoon was over it enjoyed the fruits of the pods, whose seeds had hidden in the reddish, greasy soil.
He always thought about how to thank the man who had come to save him. How he could be closer to him the way Cotton was. After a few days, the man came and sat in the shade of the bush where he slept. When he woke up and went home, he saw the shirt he was wearing had blue stains. The man was upset and the plant was sad because instead of helping him, it was bothering him. The man's wife washed the shirt with bleach from the ashes, but the stains did not wash away but became an intense and very beautiful blue.
The woman decided to find out where this color came from and how she could color her shirt. The man told her where he slept and where he stained his shirt.
Since then, the owner of the hut and the other women of the village began to dye their fabrics and threads. The most talented of them even made the first Ikat cloth, which they used only on feast days. The Indigo Plant rewarded its savior, and the people called him the True Indigo. He befriended Cotton and they never parted. The man picked his pods and used the seeds for his own culture of Indigofera Tinctoria.
Indigo is one of the oldest paintings used by mankind, and testimonies of it can be found in world history museums.
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