Sheikh Saadi was one of the greatest teachers of all the times. His "Gulistan and Bostan" remain unparallelled as teaching practical and moral wisdom. At the same time, these books contain interesting stories. Stories that are unbeatable classics in themselves. Since Saadi remains unique, nobody can emulate him. The next best thing in classical literature is anecdotal wisdom. 

Late Khushwant Singh compiled eight joke books. These are a mixture of real life happenings and incidents which were funny enough to be written about. He spiced it up with wisdom on the road, rather on wheels. A phenomenon peculiar to Pakistan and North India. He was a man of many talents and achievements, but for his contributions to this genre, he was ranked amongst legends like Birbal and Mulla Naseer-Ud-Din. 

In a way, this book is a tribute to Khushwant Singh, as well as, a continuation of "Wit and Wisdom" which is a common human cultural trait. 

Laughter and jokes are something, we all enjoy. Even cross cultural jokes and anecdotes are not so cross. A good example would be jokes about wives; intelligible to everyone around the globe.

My favourite one:

A wife who was fifty used to tell her age as thirty. Her husband was asked about his reaction to this brave attempt against nature.

His reply: "I do not have any objection. In fact, my desire is for a much younger wife."

And it's a Russian joke.

Even though I doubt that the joke "We will reach in fifteen minutes if phatak (railway gate) is not close," will be intelligible to people outside South Asia. Still it will serve as great cultural insight for them.

The one liners and jokes tell us more about people and cultures than we usually give them credit for.

Happy reading and welcome to the club!