It was before the elections. The town had invited all the candidates to address the citizens in the city hall.
Nasrudin was invited, as an exotic local character, to entertain.
When all three candidates had spoken, the Mulla mounted the platform and said:
‘I have come here to offer you my own, special recipe. Make a note of this, and try it on yourselves.’
He went on to say that certain quantities of honey, garlic and fish were to be boiled together and then eaten.
Quite a number pf people tried the recipe.
The taste was horrible. Several of them stormed Nasrudin’s house, wanting to know what he meant by such a trick.
‘Well,’ said Mulla Nasrudin, ‘I didn’t say that I liked it, in fact I had not tried it on myself. But it seemed such a good idea to me, I wanted to see whether it would work. That’s what election candidates do, isn’t it?’
The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin Idries Shah, Octagon Press