For those who remember "Dragon's Egg" ...

[Robert_Moriyama]

This is why I named  the worst hotel in Kabul the 'Hotel Nasrudin'...

Funny stories, universal truths
Evening celebrates an Afghan folk hero
Money raised will buy books for kids
Toronto Star
Nov. 17, 2006. 01:00 AM

NICHOLAS KEUNG
IMMIGRATION/DIVERSITY REPORTER

Mulla Nasrudin was throwing handfuls of bread all around his house.

"What are you doing?" someone asked.

"Keeping the tigers away."

"But there are no tigers around here."

"Exactly. Effective, isn't it?"

Every country's humour has some version of the joker-sage. In Canada, it might be the hapless islander of the classic Newfie joke. In Afghanistan — a culture not often noted by outsiders for its sense of humour — it's the 13th-century folk hero Mulla Nasrudin.

Which is why the Institute for Cross-cultural Exchange picked his birthday tomorrow as the theme for its first Toronto fundraiser, proceeds from which will help buy books for disadvantaged kids.

Co-founder Aubrey Davis, a children's author, is fascinated by the richness of storytelling in multicultural Toronto, but also dumbfounded by how few of those tales are found in schools and bookstores.

He and other storytellers figured they could help foster understanding between cultures by sharing each other's stories — and at the same time boost literacy among children living in poverty who have limited access to high-quality books.

"A story can help us understand the world from others' perspectives," said Davis, a special education teacher and author of four children's books.

"By hearing others' stories, it helps you put a brake on it and look at things from another way, for further meanings. It stops your mind from jumping to a conclusion."

Tomorrow evening's fundraiser, at The Yoga Sanctuary on College St. near Yonge St., honours Mulla Nasrudin, whose "antics, in a vast corpus of colloquial jokes, have kept the people of Afghanistan and many other countries in stitches for centuries," according to Davis.

A native of Kandahar, Jamal Kakar grew up with the Nasrudin stories. They have been passed on orally from generation to generation, in part because of the teachings and morals that lie behind the silly jokes — for example, when Nasrudin carries a donkey on his back out of fairness to his animal friend.

...

Mulla Nasrudin went to see a psychiatrist.

"My trouble is that I can't remember anything," he said.

"When did this start?" asked the doctor.

"When did what start?" said Nasrudin.

*************
"How old are you, Mulla?"

"40."

"But you said that the last time I asked you, two years ago."

"Yes, I always stand by what I have said."

*************
"Why do you want snakebite treatment, Mulla?"

"Well, I picked up a stick I thought was a snake."

"But that wouldn't bite you!"

"But what about the snake I picked up to hit the stick with?"

*************
"Why do you always answer a question with another question, Nasrudin?"

"Do I?"

*************
Nasrudin used to take his donkey across a frontier every day loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again.

They searched his person, searched the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. Meanwhile, he was visibly more and more prosperous.

Then he retired and went to live in another country. Here one of the customs officers met him, years later.
"You can tell me now, Nasrudin," he said. "Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?"

"Donkeys," said Nasrudin.