Story-telling

Today I heard an interesting story, or proverb, if you could call it that.  I’ll translate it to you just as I heard it:

A boy was walking through the bazaar one day and heard a man advertising the sale of a camel for 1 dollar.  The boy went home and excitedly told his dad about this.  To the boy’s surprise, the boy’s father replied, “Ah, that’s too expensive.”  A few weeks later, the boy is walking through the same bazaar and hears that a camel is now selling for 40 dollars.  At home he told his father with disappointment that the price of camels had gone up forty-fold.  The father replied, “That’s a cheap price, go and buy it right away!” 

(The story-teller stops at this point and waits for one of the listeners to state the point that everyone in this culture understands: When a person doesn’t have any money, everything is expensive.)

Now that I’ve told you one story that you may or may not completely understand, let me go further by telling a horrible joke that I’ve heard a few times:

Mullah Nasruddin was sitting in his 10^th story apartment one summer day when he heard someone shouting from the ground level of the center stairwell.  He leaned an ear into the hallway and heard, “Ahmad Jan, I’ve returned from your home on the river, and the news is terrible!  Your daughter has eloped with a Pakistani!”

Mullah Nasruddin immediately reacted to this news, realizing that his family name and honor was now ruined.  He was so struck by this tragedy that he immediately decided to end his family’s dishonor, and he jumped off his balcony.

But while he was falling, he began to think…

When he passed the 7^th story balcony he asked himself, “Whose name did that man call out?”

When he passed the 5^th story balcony he also realized that he did not have a house on the river.

When he passed the 2^nd story balcony he stated aloud, “Wait, I don’t even have a daughter!”

A horrible joke indeed, but when people tell it there is a teaching point included.  The point is that this society needs to think about how quickly they leap to passionate, if not violent, conclusions that have irreversible consequences.