Little tales from the Staan

A visit to the healers

God had gifted Nasruddin with a healthy pair of eyes. Upon injury to his hand he sought advice from the Physician and the Dervish. The Physician wrapped bandages around the injured limb and handed him ointment.

‘Look out next time,’ said the doctor dryly.

‘Look up next time,’ said the Dervish sophomorically. ‘Woe be on you, this is a punishment from the Most High. Seek help from Him alone and don’t stop looking until God has forgiven you for your sins. You must always look up, my child. Always look up!’

The words of the Dervish had touched him – he was teary eyed, spiritually uplifted, and with a heart ready to embrace. Nasruddin left the shrine staring upwards and fell down the steps.

He broke his arm.



A chicken for an eye

With the shrinking of the Aral Sea, Mullah Nasruddin’s cotton field was in short supply of water – a commodity which had come to be as important as oil. When his dishonest neighbour, Ahmed Chickenov, asked for some water, Nasruddin was hesitant.

After thinking it through he spoke: ‘I’ll lend you water only if you lend me your prized 12-pound hen.’ Chickenov was a farmer.

The wily farmer shook Nasruddin’s hand, certain that no harm would come to the bird. If anything the hen would get a free meal. He leashed the guard dog, opened the cage locks and took the plump fowl out.

Three days passed and nothing happened. Then on the fourth Ahmed came knocking onto Nasruddin’s door.

‘I want my hen back,’ he demanded.

‘Where’s my water?’

‘Oh that water,’ he looked away. ‘That terrible, horrible, odorous thing?...It ran off.’

‘Ran off?’

‘Yes, the moment I lifted the lid the horrible thing escaped and fled up inside that very cloud.’ He thumbed upwards. ‘If you want your water back ask the sky but here’s your water vessel.’

Nasruddin meditated upon the matter calmly before replying that he’d be back with his neighbour’s property. Three hours passed before Mullah reappeared with a plate.

‘What’s this?’ Chickenov yelled. ‘Where’s my bird?’

‘Oh, that horrible thing?’ Nasruddin picked from between his teeth: ‘It ran off. The moment I let her into my house she flew out and hid inside your dog’s droppings. If you want your hen back ask the dog, but here are your feathers.’



Indispensable

An autumn leaf descended from the heights of the canopy and upon its descent met those who were fresher, greener and healthier. The shame of it all had made it wish for the very gust which had stolen the leaf to now do it the justice of taking it far, far away.

A rock toppled and tumbled down from a summit so when it arrived at the foot of the mountain its sharp arrogant edges had been polished and humbled.

It just so happens that the tree and leaf were situated at the foothill where the rock had come to rest. The two had come together unwittingly but as happens in life, when your loss is considerable God dispatches a special set of friends. Their arrival is as gentle and welcoming as rain bubbles and they balm your wounds.

So the pair found company and it wasn’t long before they had wanted to share their traumatic experience.

Said the leaf: ‘I was the first leaf to come out from its stem and to divide it in two. I was there when even the thought of a branch was a mere streak on our sides. And to think of our enterprise as being covered with bark and wood and growth was sheer madness.’

Spoke the rock: ‘I was the first lump of magma to cool into myself when one landmass pushed into another mass and the earth furrowed with expressions of a new mountain.’

‘Day after day I worked the hardest to grow and gather light and make food. I worked so hard to make my enterprise flourish and to grow towards the big warm yellow bulb in the sky.’

‘Me too,’ exclaimed the rock. ‘Me too; before I cooled into this shape I was hot and yellow and viscous, just like the bulb you speak of. And just like you I wanted to grab it too.’

‘So you wanted to be at the top of your mountain.’

‘And you wanted to reach for the stars.’

‘Yes, yes! And we grew towards our goal, didn’t we’ said the leaf. ‘Before long I was taller than the grass, then above the flowers and bushes and those things that move and make sounds and eat us.’

‘And my mound grew to a hillock and rose to the heights of a hill. From my height I thought your tree was an envious little mushroom. And then I became a mountain.’ There was a pause. The rock sighed, ‘Can you believe that? I actually thought I became a mountain.’

‘If you think you’re bad then listen to this: I thought I was the tree. I actually thought the entire tree had grown out of my petiole.’

‘And the entire mountain had come out of my bottom.’

‘Talk about self-importance-’

‘Tell me about it. I thought the entire mountain grew out of my bottom just so it could take me higher. I imagine yours was the same. You thought the twig had come out of your vein and grown branches which swelled into a trunk that grew upwards just so it could take you to the light. We never understood that our ascending rank was the product of things so much bigger than us.’

‘Of growth-’

‘And of cooperation-’

‘So that’s when I became lazy,’ heaved the leaf. ‘I thought I was the king; I was indispensable. I curled open later than everyone else. I made little food. Soon I lost my green colour and turned orange.’

‘I separated myself from the dirt and just sat there doing nothing; nothing but staring at the sky.’

‘In the end all it took was a breeze -’

‘The mountain had used the same excuse -’

‘For the tree to replace me with another leaf.’

‘And for the mountain to look the other way.’

A gust of air swept down from a nearby hill and carried the leaf with it. Their brief meeting came to an end.