Notice-The Mulla Nasruddin Stories

My book The Mulla Nasruddin Stories is published through Lulu.com. The pocketbook has plenty of illustrations and has 158 pages. There are 160 plus stories. Here is a write-up about my central character:
Mulla Nasruddin is a common folk hero in the Near East, Middle East and Turkey. He is a Seljuk satirical Sufi figure, sometimes believed to have lived around 13th century. His inspired tomfoolery is tempered with wisdom and in the present work his anecdotes serve the same purpose as the fables of the Greek slave. The Greek storyteller adopted fables as a mode to teach lessons in prudence and moral values. Mulla Nasruddin served his life, as a living proof that a life stripped of superfluities can be both inspiring and lively.
This book is meant as a companion piece to the Life of Aesop written by the same author.
This book is priced at 9.50 Euros
You may check it out at http://www.lulu.com/content/12216087
Happy Reading folks,
benny

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The Chronicle of Gampa Guru

Chapter-1
Gampa Guru Writes His Master piece

It is customary, though not necessarily the rule, for a master of great learning to found a school of thought. But modesty forbids some, ventures of such vast scope. They are instead quite content with leaving a book or two for posterity. Thus it was with Gampa Guru.
His disciples rallied around him from the moment he casually expressed his idea. They grasped its significance and from that moment not a day passed without their anxiously prodding the master to be out with it. How long can a master put such zeal with a laconic answer,’I am thinking?’
Pedda put it succinctly on the seventieth day after Gamp Guru tried to palm off with the stock answer,’ What is there to think?’
Yes since he took to define a school of thought that was quite his own, thinking was like a bull peeing non stop! It took a while during which his modest mind showed signs of wilting. But his five disciples were right behind him, urging him to set it all down for all time.
Milecha saw the name of the master spreading all about. He could even smell of incense burning. He fought the urge to wrap it about him as his due, No his master was worthy of homage and they were merely his disciples. Others were also affected by it.
‘Like a wild fire sending ideas helter- skelter’Maddaya sensed the ruckus his master caused in him.
‘No it is like a weighty stone sinking into the pool of serene thought’ Mooda added.
The master must be pregnant with ideas, that is for sure!’Maddi threw in his opinion,’May it be quintuplets.’
Pedda pooh-poohed these to say the master’s book should be like a glorious cloud in the intellectual firmament as he could visualize it. Sure enough a sudden rain made the four disciples accept Pedda’s similie the closest to the master’s yet-unwritten magnum opus.
Under the rack of scholarly solicitude and plain nagging Gampa Guru finally called for his stylus and palm leaves that soon materialized before him. Gampa Guru let out a deep sigh and looked at the disciples whose combined bated breath sounded in his ears ominous: like a hard wind from five disciples about to be broken on his neck. He curtly asked them to make themselves scarce.
Instantly he was alone under the peepul tree.
He took his pen and said,’Ahem!’
After a fortnight the work was complete. The first leaf carried invocation to elephant-god and a superscription: The Truth about Nothing.’
The disciple in taking hold of the work felt they were like Truth seekers who were given a taste of Truth in its infinite simplicity. Each took it by turns and reverentially pressed it to his eyes.
‘Blessed are our eyes to see Truth in her inward beauty’.
They gathered around Milecha who could read somewhat but they need not have worried. The remaining leaves were blank.
There fell painful silence.
Pedda exclaimed,’Truth about Nothing!
Mooda said somewhat bravely,’ Our master is so brilliant he has taken Truth inside out!
Maddaya,’He breaks new ground in Thought.’
‘Nothing!’ they all exclaimed in unison.
They walked in circles while their master felt cramp down in his legs.
‘The title itself encapsulated the wisdom of our sages.’ they beamed towards their master in admiration.
They were of one accord that no amount of dissertations or theses would do justice as a simple comment from the author. So they beamed and asked,’Master, what you had in mind when you wrote it all down?’
‘What does it say?’
‘Nothing.’ blurted out Pedda
The other five in a shock leaned on him and he said guiltily,’I meant the title. But what of the rest?’
The incomparable master shook himself up and his painful legs had somewhat swollen. He walked unsteadily and said cryptically,’ Why don’t you read it yourself?’
‘Ah!’ they exclaimed as if all their doubts had vanished with the gentle nudge of the Master once and for all into the abyss.
They said,’It is about Nothing! The great Cosmic Void>!’
(note: excerpt taken from my first full length work. I wrote this humorous tale in the early 80s. b.)
benny

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