Mulla Naseeruddin Modern Tales -1

The security staff at Konya airport looked at him in surprise, he has seen his caricature somewhere for sure. He couldn’t recollect. He checked the Turkish Airline boarding pass again, the elderly gentleman’s name read Nasredin Hodja. He stamped the pass & handed it over to him. The old man flashed his perfect white teeth flashing from his long, white beard & muttered, ‘Eyvallah huuuuu’. The security guard knelt down in front of him, kissed his hand. He had no doubt about the old man’s identity. He patted the guard gently on his head and melted into a boarding queue, in hurried steps.

The old man deplaned at Istanbul Airport, his long, well-worn woolen robe was attracting a lot of eyeballs in the terminal. He took the last sip of Ayran from a paper cup & threw the cup in a metal bin.

He walked to the taxi stand outside & boarded a fiat cab. His quick instruction in Turkish to the cabbie would translate, ‘take me to SultanAhmet camii.’ It was a ninety minutes ride to the blue mosque. He paid the cabbie in Turkish Lira. He entered the mosque. Having removed his shoes, he paused for a full two minutes, eyes closed in silent meditation. Some noisy youngsters taking selfies inside the main prayer hall abruptly stopped in their tracks. The old man with his eyes closed had a divine glow around him, an aura which they had never come across.      

After his prayer, he came out in the quadrangle. Towards his right, there was a board carrying the farewell sermon of Prophet Muhammad. He bent down to kiss the board, and then started reading it slowly, in English. A crowd started gathering around him, small at first. Within minutes, most of the tourists circled him. He was reading in a slow, rich baritone. A middle aged man asked him in English, ‘do you agree with everything the Prophet had said in this sermon?’ He paused, and smilingly held the man’s hand in his. The man saw the eyes, if eyes could give a hug they would have looked like the old man’s. The old man pointed at the crowd, threw a question in the air, ‘what’s your take on his question?’ Some people in the crowd nodded in agreement, some kept silence. He laughed heartily and said, ‘those who agree with whatever is written in this sermon, please explain this gentleman & the others about why do you believe so.’