Nasruddin

Once, Nasruddin was invited to deliver a talk. When he got on the stage, he asked ‘Do you know what I am going to say?’ The audience replied ‘No’. So he announced ‘I have no desire to speak to people who don’t even know what I will be talking about’ and left.

The people felt embarrassed and called him back again the next week. This time when he asked the same question, the people replied ‘Yes’. So he said, ‘Well, since you already know what I am going to say, I won’t waste any more of your time’ and he left.

Now the people were really perplexed. They decided to try one more time and once again invited him to speak the following week. Once again he asked the same question: ‘Do you know what I am going to say?’ Now the people were prepared and so half of them answered ‘Yes’ while the other half replied ‘No’. So he said ‘The half who know what I am going to say, tell it to the other half’ and he left.

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Nasruddin used to stand in the street on market-days, to be pointed out as an idiot. No matter how often people offered him a large and a small coin, he always chose the smaller piece. One day a kindly man said to him: ‘Nasruddin, you should take the bigger coin. Then you will havemore money and people will no longer be able to make a laughing stock of you’. ‘That may be true,’ said Nasruddin, ‘but if I always take the larger one, people will stop offering me money to prove that I am more idiotic than they are. Then I would have no money at all’.

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One day Nasruddin lost his ring down in the basement of his house, where it was very dark. There being no chance of his finding it in that darkness, he went out on the street and started looking for it there. Somebody passing by stopped and enquired: ‘What are you looking for, Nasruddin? Have you lost something?’ ‘Yes, I’ve lost my ring down in the basement.’ ‘But Nasruddin, why don’t you look for it down in the basement where you have lost it?’asked the man in surprise. ‘Don’t be silly, man! How do you expect me to find anything in that darkness!’

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Nasruddin was throwing bits of bread all around his house. ‘What are you doing?’ someone asked. ‘Keeping the tigers away.’ ‘But there are no tigers around here’. ‘Exactly. Effective, isn’t it?’

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'Nasruddin, why do you always answer a question with another question?’ ‘Do I?’