Efforts are now well under way to establish a broad-based government for post-Taliban Afghanistan. As an initial step, a conference is currently being held in Bonn, under United Nations auspices. But what are its chances of success? No one familiar with Afghan politics can have any illusion about the difficulty of forming a government of [...]

Once a beggar knocked at the door of Nasruddin’s house. Nasruddin was in a room on the second floor. From there he asked, “Who is knocking the door?” But the poor man asked him to open the door. Nasruddin went down stairs and opened the door. He saw a beggar demanding some money. He told [...]

Once Nasruddin took his students to his house and insisted they should have lunch with him. Moment later, he called his wife and ordered her to cook Palaw for the guests as soon as possible. His wife said, “You order so simply as if you have rice and ghee in the house.” Nasruddin became very [...]

Nasruddin had a little money. He wanted to hide it some where. At first he dug a hole, kept the money there and covered it with soil. After a while he thought the money was not safe there because it would be discovered soon. He dug another hole and kept the money there. He repeated [...]

One winter night while Nasruddin was sleeping he heard a noise that was suddenly made in the street. Having covered himself with his blanket, he came out to know the cause of the noise. Suddenly a smart thief robbed him of his blanket and ran away. He came back home without the blanket. In reply [...]

One day Nasruddin, while passing by a place, had a few apricots in his sleeve. He saw some people who were sitting under a tree. Calling them he asked a question, “if any one of you found out what I have in my sleeve, I will give the biggest apricot to him.” One of them [...]