Brothers of the donkey
One day, Nasruddin’s donkey died, and the entire town was sad. Everyone respected and loved the little grey animal that had carried their Mullah for so many years.
It is true that a donkey’s life is not as long as that as a human. If the donkey had been human, Nasruddin’s neighbors would have moaned and groaned just as if a close relative had passed. Instead, they came quietly with small gifts of sweetmeats and whispered, “We are so very sorry for your loss.” As night fell and the Nasruddins were getting ready for bed, they felt comforted to know they had such good friends.
Some of Nasruddin’s students, however, were always looking to make grief for the Mullah, even in his hour of muted sorrow. “Mullah always treated his donkey as if he was one of the family,” said Mehmet, the gang leader.
“Let’s play a trick on the Mullah by pretending we are mourners at the wake for the donkey.” The boys quickly agreed.
They proceeded through the dark village streets toward the Mullah’s house, moaning and sighing and beating their breasts as though they were professional mourners who had been paid many dinars to grieve the death of a great man.
As they marched, sounding woeful and inconsolable, they made a dirge of the donkey’s name, howling it in time to their marching.
From the shadows of doorways along the street, other men and boys emerged following the noise to find out what it was all about.
The hooligans’ howls reached a crescendo when they knocked at the Mullah’s street gate, then they softened their wails to low moans as they expected the response.
“Open the gate, please,” they heard the Mullah call to one of his friends. The boys moaned louder as the door creaked open.
“Bring a light, Fatima,” they heard the Mullah call to his wife.
“Who in the world can it be?” they heard Fatima ask her husband.
They groaned and wailed the name of the dead donkey.
Then the loud voice of the Mullah carried easily across the walls to the boys in the street and to the men who were watching them. “It must be . . . our dead donkey’s family, who have come to mourn in sorrow.”
The boys tittered and giggled. The men coughed.
“Yes, it must be the brothers of the donkey!” Nasruddin continued. “Who else but an ass’s brother would come at this late hour to mourn her?”
As the boys sneaked off into the darkness, they heard laughing voices repeating, “The brothers of the donkey! The brothers of the donkey!”
Excerpted from The Uncommon Sense of the Immortal Mullah Nasruddin: Stories, Jests, and Donkey Tales of the Beloved Persian Folk Hero
Your Daily Nasruddin
Here Nasruddin is willing to play along with the kids’ game — pretending to be brothers of the dead donkey who have come to mourn their loss — as long as it at their expense for a joke. The Mullah always gets the last laugh and, as we all well know, he who laughs last laughs best.
