THERE’S THIS WELL-KNOWN story of a bald man who, caught in a thunderstorm, huddles under a wood-apple tree for cover. The tree is of middling height with slender branches but is laden with fruit. It …
Grappling with the enemy: Tips from a Persian slave
Many of us who’ve reported to bosses that don’t like our face will empathise with this story of a hounded Persian slave. Like him, we have been target and victim, and we know what hatred …
Gems from Rumi
It’s quite incredible how simply Rumi, the much-loved Sufi mystic, explains complex feelings like anger, fear, envy and hatred, and even something like poison. As lay human beings, we think a thousand times when we …
The fortune in a Turkish cobbler’s stars
Many of us may have shed a silent tear while watching the 2014 Hollywood film, The Fault in our Stars. In the film, a 16-year-old girl with metastatic thyroid cancer and a young boy with …
Give some, get a lumpsum — a Sufi bargain hunt
My school principal, a feisty Irish nun, would often say that some people tended to look upon God as a ‘slot machine’. Instead of a Supreme Being in which one had unwavering faith, they would …