Editor’s note: This post is part of neweurasia’s cross-blog survey on humour in Central Asia.

To be honest first time when I decided to write about Afandi or Khoja Nasriddin I didn’t know that there is too much information about this stage character in the Internet. To my surprise I found that Wikipedia has already a full story on him and to my shame I have nothing else to say. If the Wiki continues to develop in such a fast pace soon we will have nothing to write about. Probably every single person in Tajikistan and other Central Asia countries knows at least one story about Khoja but no one really knows who he is.

When I was a child and heard many different stories about him and I thought how one person could have so many funny experiences in his life. Later I understood that it was one person who fell into several funny situations and all other stories came up later. Probably this is one of the main characters in Tajikistan which is regularly quoted in everyday life.

Stories about him are always popular, because they are comprehensible for every person – adult or a child. They are full of philosophy and irony which could be seen in our everyday life. It is a character which does not belong to any nation. He can be found most of the oriental countries and people in these countries think that Afandi is their countryman. No matter what his origins are, the anecdotes about him are funny and wise and to a great extent express the culture of oriental people.

There is one anecdote which first came to my mind:

Two guys wanted to rob the house of Afandi. When they got inside the house they found nothing to steal but one trunk (sunduk) in the corner of the room which was really heavy. They didn’t know how to take it away. The robbers decided to open the trunk and look what is inside it. When they opened it, they were surprised to find Afandi sitting inside it. They asked him “What are you doing inside the trunk?”, he said in reply “I’m hiding from you because I’m ashamed to have nothing in my house for stealing!”

Here are some other stories about him from different sources.

Delivering a Khutba

Once, Nasreddin was invited to deliver a khutba. When he got on the minbar (pulpit), 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 he left.

The people felt embarrassed and called him back again the next day. This time when he asked the same question, the people replied “YES”. So Nasreddin 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 the Mullah 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 Nasreddin said “The half who know what I am going to say, tell it to the other half” and he left!

Cat Tale

One day Molla bought three okes (an oke is 2.8 pounds) of meat and took it home to his wife. Then he returned to work. Immediately, his wife called her friends and prepared a superb dinner. In the evening, Molla returned for supper, and his wife offered him nothing but bread and onions.

He turned to her and said, “But why haven’t you prepared anything from the meat?”

“I rinsed the meat and was going to put it on the stove when this damn cat came up and took it away,” she said.

Molla at once ran to get the scales. Then he found the cat and weighed it. It was exactly three okes!

Then he turned to his wife and said, “Look here! If what I have just weighed is the cat, then where’s the meat? But if this is the meat, then where’s the cat?”

Cutting off the branch you are riding on

One day the Hodja was up a tree cutting fire wood. Somebody passing by, noticed he was busily hacking at the very branch he was riding on.

Be careful, Hodja Effendi! he warned. It is the branch you are riding on that you are trying to cut off. Unless you stop at once, you will certainly come a cropper.

The Hodja didn’t bother to answer the man. Busy-bodies were everywhere. Never doing anything useful themselves, they kept telling you what to do, or not to do. While his mind was on this train of thought, down came the Hodja together with the branch he had just managed to severe.

His opinion of the man was immediately reversed. Surely this was a man not to be trifled with. In fact, he might be the wisest man he would ever meet in his life. As soon as he got himself disentangled, he ran after the man, but he was too late, for the man had disappeared.

Probably that was just as well. Because what he had had in mind was to ask the sage to tell him exactly when he was due to die.

A loud crash

Some neighbors asked Nasreddin Hoja, “What was that loud crash we heard from your house last night?” “Nothing much,” he replied. “My wife was angry, and she threw some clothes down the stairs.”

“What a loud noise, just for clothes!.” they pried.

“Well, if you must know,” said the Hoja, “I was in them at the time.”