The pleasantries of the incredible Mullah Nasrudin and The subtelties of the inimitable Mullah Nasrudin

Author: Idries Shah

These are two different books and, as the name suggests, on the same theme. Mulla Nasrudin is a a folk character of middle-east. He is sometimes silly, sometimes funny and sometimes beyond my understanding! His constant companion is his donkey. Many countries claim to be the progenitor of this character and hence it's hard to pinpoint which country he belongs to.

I was first introduced to this character through a serial aired by Doordarshan by the same name. This was long back when cable television hardly had any roots in India. Recently, one fine day I remembered how funny his tales used to be and so I searched and found that there are a couple of books on him. Lo and behold! I issued almost all these books from the library.

Coming back to the books, they contain Mulla's anecdotes some of which are not even half a page in length. You can't help but smile at the end of each tale. This is not to say that all the tales will keep you glued. The first book has a better set of anecdotes than the second one.

Bottomline: A must read.