Short Story: Mullah Nasruddin's Saturday morning adventure

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It was early Saturday morning, at the Mullah's house, and he had been promising to cut the lawns of his house, for the past month, and they were now overly long. The Mullah, having gotten up early at 4 am that morning, and performed his outdoor meditation, which was a particularly good one for him that morning, felt on top of the world, his world. He thought that he would mow the grass. The problem was that it was still only 6 am in the morning, and making such a noise at that early time, on a Saturday morning, when most people slept in was a no-no in his town, and if caught, you could be fined a hefty fine for it too. Now, the Mullah, amongst his many other past exploits, at one time, he had been a master landscape gardener. He still had most of his equipment, in his large garden shed, and this included too, his latest acquisition, an electric lawnmower, silent as the night is long, or should that be lawn is long, in this example here. It had no cord, and its battery lasted for 4 hours. It only took him 2 hours to mow his lawn, do the edgers, and to sweep up afterwards And so, he used this silent mower now to cut his lawns. The Mullah always had multiple reasons as to why he did things as he did. Here, his other reasons were that his wife, and his father-in-law were, to all intents, still fast asleep in their beds, and lastly, that he did not really want to disturb the Jewish couple next door, who used to frown at him, from their skullcaps down, whenever they saw a reputed Holy man like him, working on their holy day, the Sabbath. They expected him to show more respect for them, living right next door to him. If his wife watched him cutting the lawn, she always insisted that he cut it at a higher blade position, at level 3 on his mower, as she claimed she knew a lot about cutting lawns, from watching all of the latest gardening shows, on television. These shows claimed that the grass grew better, thicker, and more bountifully, if it was cut once a week, at the higher blade position, rather than once a month, at a low blade position. The Mullah hated these shows himself, and it was only because he used to be a landscape gardener himself that he got away with his cutting it as low as possible, so that he would not have to cut it every week, a real pain in the neck, for a busy beaver like himself. He said to her, that cutting it low, drives the worms lower into the ground, making the soil happier, and this is far more better for the lawn, in the long run too. Being an expert, she believed him, as she had never heard anything to counter his logical sounding arguement, on the gardening shows so far, although she had wanted to. All was going well, and the edges were all finished to perfection. The Mullah was now half-finished his lawns, and being a corner block, he had a lot of lawns to cut. Then, it was, that he smelt a distinctive smell behind him. He heard nothing, as even though his lawnmower was silent, the Mullah was still wearing his ear-muffs. He did this so that no early morning joggers would disturb him in his deep trance-like meditations. He meditated singing light chants to himself. as he mowed. He really was mostly oblivious to all around him, when he chanted, his favourite chant, which was, "om-hu-na-va-ha-ha-ha-so-long-oh-ho-hu-om", one that he had coined himself from a few other charged words that he knew. He particularly liked the "ha-ha-ha" in the middle of his chant, as it had a touch of humour within it, so important to retaining while on a spiritual path. The Mullah was walking backwards now, pulling the lawnmower backwards, as he went up and down, on the nature-strip lawns. But smelling the smell, he looked over his shoulder, and there, standing right behind him, where he was about to get bumped into, by the Mullah, was his father-in-law. The Father-in-law must have spied the Mullah outside his bedroom window, as he cut underneath it before. He had not come out right away, because it took him a while to get dressed up. Being old school, he never went outside without washing his face, doing his hair, sponging down his body a bit, especially his underarms, and then he would liberally spray and splash perfume, and cologne all over himself, even if he was just going outside, just to help the Mullah in his lawn cutting. His hair was also combed immaculately, with not a hair out of its place. The Mullah's shed was open, and the old man had found the hand-wheeled edger, that the Mullah had already finished with, and of all things, he was now using it on the edge right behind the Mullah. "How stupid is that?", the Mullah thought to himself. "Can't he see I have already finished the edges, and if he was going to do them, why start doing them right behind where I am busy cutting. He could have started anywhere else in the lawn." The Mullah said to his father-in-law, "It is still early, go inside again and have your breakfast. I will finish that after I finish cutting the lawns. You know that with your weak heart, at your age, Fatima, my wife, and your daughter, will be very angry with you. She has told you before, not to touch that edger, as it takes a lot of physical strength to push it along." The old man went back inside the house. The Mullah finished and went inside too, just in time for breakfast too, as his wife was now up too. Another eventful morning in the house of the Mullah! Photo Credit: The photo used here belongs to me, the author, of this piece. The Mullah's trusty old garden edge belonged once to his own father. He still used it to cut his own edges, as these old tools really do what they were made to do, not like the modern-day tools, which are mostly cheap junk, was the Mullah's rationale here.