Haji Saheb spoke and assured the crowd that they will be rewarded here and in the hereafter for the efforts they were making to bring down a corrupt ruler.

Narazi Saheb spoke and told the crowd, for the 10th time, that the umpire was about to lift his finger, which finger he did not specify.

Happy that their daily doze of lectures, promises and slogan mongering was over, the audience split into two groups. Those who were going home; started walking out of the ground. Those who were spending the night outside the House of Hollow Speeches; scattered around.

Soon, the lights were turned off. Doors of the two leaders’ mobile homes were shut tight. Food stalls closed. Entertainers went home. Dancers too. Haji Saheb’s qawwals also had disappeared.

Automobiles came and took away some of the organisers. The guards, now relaxed that the leaders were inside the containers, withdrew to remote corners.

Both stages – one for Haji Saheb and the other for Narazi Saheb – looked deserted.

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Dilpazeer, who has been watching this ‘tamasha’ for more than a week now, went to his friends and said: “Now our show begins.”

The friends smiled and took him to the center of D-Chowk where a large group was already waiting for Dilpazeer.

“So what are we going to hear tonight, Dilpazeer Saheb?” asked a young man, handing him a cup of steaming milk-tea.

“It rained heavily today, didn’t it?” asked Dilpazeer, while accepting the cup.

“Yes, it did,” some in the crowd, responded.

“And you guys are still here? I salute you,” said Dilpazeer.

“You know, we do not have a choice. He is our peer (saint), we have to obey him,” said a follower of Haji Saheb.

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“And you?” Dilpazeer turned to the followers of Narazi Saheb.

“We go home after the speeches. Most of us are from the Peace City,” said one of them. “We too will go home when you finish your story.”

“Yes, yes, story. Tell us the story. Don’t waste our time,” the crowd shouted.

“What are we going to hear tonight?” asked one of them. “Alf Laila, Amir Hamza or a fairy tale?”

“None of these,” said Dilpazeer, who had no interest in politics but loved storytelling. He came to D-Chowk almost every night since the show began because here he found a group of avid listeners.

On the first night, he came only to see the show and intended to return home early. But when his friends decided to stay overnight, he too stayed with them.

The sky was clear. The stars, bright. Shrouded in darkness, the nearby mountains looked mysterious. Thousands of people were lying around him. Some already asleep, other still talking.

Dilpazeer felt as if he was back in the days of Alf Laila, traveling from one city to another with a huge caravan. So when a friend, who knew that Dilpazeer loved reading and telling stories, asked him to tell one, he happily obliged.

As he spoke, those within hearing distance also joined the group and this is how the storytelling sessions began, every night after the speeches.

“So what are you going to tell us tonight?” asked someone from the small crowd that had gathered around Dilpazeer.

“Stories of Mullah Nasruddin,” said Dilpazeer.

“Great, we have heard them before. They are funny,” said another story lover. “Start the story, please, start,” someone else shouted.

Dilpazeer began:

Once a rich merchant invited Nasruddin to dinner. In the evening, Nasruddin went to his house and knocked on the door.

The merchant’s son answered the door and told Nasruddin that his father was not home.

Nasruddin, however, had already seen the host sitting inside, by a window. So he told his son: “Please tell your father not to forget his head by the window, next time he goes out.”

The crowd laughed and when they stopped, Dilpazeer asked if they had checked whether Haji Saheb and Narazi Saheb were still inside the containers or had they only left their heads by the windows.

And before the crowd could react, Dilpazeer began another story:

One day Mullah Nasruddin bought a donkey. Holding the donkey’s rope, Nasruddin started to walk towards home. Two thieves saw this and decided to trick Nasruddin.

One of them quietly came up behind the donkey, loosened the rope and put it around his own neck. The rogue took the donkey back to the market and sold it.

When Mullah Nasruddin reached home, he turned around and saw the boy in place of the donkey.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Oh, Sir, it is an amazing story. You may not believe me but it is true,” said the thief.

“I was a very naughty boy. I misbehaved all the time and made my mother miserable. One day, she got very upset and said: ‘I would have been better off with a donkey.’ Immediately, I turned into a donkey.”

“Distressed, she went to a wise man and sought his advice. He told her that this curse will only be lifted when a pious man buys the donkey. So the curse ended, when you bought me.”

Mullah Nasruddin knew he had been tricked and regretted not looking back while pulling home what he thought was a donkey.

“I will let you go, but never torment your mother again,” he said to the thief.

The next day Nasruddin went back to the market to buy another donkey. There, he saw the donkey he had bought the day before. Mullah went up to the animal and whispered in its ear: “Did you disobey your mother again?”

Dilpazeer finished the story and said to the crowd: “Have you checked if there’s a donkey at the end of the rope?” And started the third story before the crowd could respond:

Mullah Nasruddin was getting bald. He decided he would look better off with a shaved head, instead of a half-empty patch. So he went to a barber.

Unfortunately, the barber was out and had left behind an apprentice. A sharp razor in the trembling hands of the young apprentice was not reassuring. But the novice persuaded Mullah Nasruddin to let him do the job. Mullah agreed nervously.

While the apprentice was still sharpening the razor, Mullah Nasruddin heard a loud bellowing. Alarmed, he asked the young barber to go and checked. The barber returned and told him that a blacksmith was shoeing an ox.

“Thank God! I thought another apprentice barber was shaving a man,” said Mullah Nasruddin and left the shop.

“Now, whether your leaders stay or leave, or there is a donkey at the end of the rope or not, please never let a novice shave your head,” said Dilpazeer before he too went to sleep.