Hello dear ones and welcome to today's story.
Naz Ruddin's donkey.
Muller Nasruddin was sitting outside his house one afternoon.
Drinking tea and watching a beetle make its extremely determined way across the courtyard.
When his neighbour,
Hassan,
Came running through the gate.
With the expression of a man who has seen his own death written in the sky.
Nasruddin,
Hassan said,
Clutching the gatepost for support.
I am ruined.
Sit down,
" said Nasruddin.
I cannot sit.
My donkey is gone.
He was here this morning and now he is gone.
Drink some tea.
There is no time for tea.
Without the donkey,
I cannot carry goods to the market.
Without goods at market,
I have no income.
Without income I cannot pay what I owe.
Without paying what I owe,
I will lose the house.
Without the house,
My family will be in the street.
In the street in winter.
Nasruddin,
You understand what that means.
He sat down.
Apparently without noticing that he'd done so.
And pressed his face into his hands.
We will die.
We will all die because of a donkey.
Nasruddin poured a second cup of tea and set it in front of his neighbour.
How long has the donkey been gone?
He asked.
Since this morning.
I noticed at midday.
And in that time.
Since midday.
In your mind.
You have lost your income,
Your house.
Your family's shelter.
And all of your lives.
It is not funny,
Hassan said darkly.
No,
Agreed Nazruddin.
It is extraordinary.
Most men take a lifetime to ruin themselves.
You have managed it in four hours.
And without spending a coin.
Hasan was about to respond with some heat.
When a sound came from the far side of the courtyard.
The familiar plodding.
Heavy hooves.
Entirely unconcerned sound of a donkey.
Who has been somewhere interesting.
And has now decided.
At his own pace,
And for his own reasons.
That it is time to come home.
The donkey wandered through the gate.
It paused to inspect Nasruddin's teeth.
It twitched one ear.
It seemed,
If anything,
Slightly bored.
Hasan leapt to his feet.
He's back.
Oh,
He's back,
Nasruddin.
Everything is fine.
My income,
My house,
My family,
Everything.
He threw his arms around the donkey's neck.
He was,
For a moment.
Incandescent with joy.
Nasruddin watched this.
Except his tea.
Hasan.
He said,
Eventually.
Yes.
The man was now beaming.
Between the ruin of your family.
And the salvation of everything you love.
What actually changed?
Hassan blinked.
The donkey came back.
The donkey,
" said Nasruddin carefully.
Walked through a gate.
He set down his cup.
Where was the ruin?
Where is the salvation?
The donkey was somewhere.
Then the donkey was here.
In between.
In that space where you lost everything and then recovered it.
The donkey was not consulting.
The house stood.
Your family was safe.
The debt existed exactly as it had before.
Nothing changed,
Hassan.
Except the story you were telling yourself.
Hassan opened his mouth.
He closed it.
He looked at the donkey.
Who was now investigating a patch of dry grass with the philosophical calm of a creature that has never once constructed an imaginary catastrophe.
That I was suffering.
He said at last.
Quietly this time.
Yes,
" said Nasruddin.
Not unkindly.
You were.
You were suffering.
That part was real enough.
He picked up the teapot.
Come,
Sit with me a while longer.
There is nothing wrong with your life,
That a few minutes of actually living it wouldn't help.
