Vice Stories

Retold Arabian Nights Tale: Ali Baba And 40 Thieves - 01

Will Alibaba’s fearful mind risk danger?

Fear clouds opportunities, time & reflection reveal them.

Retold Arabian Nights Tale: Ali Baba And 40 Thieves - 04

Qasim gets to the treasure, but can he get it out?

Stressed minds make mistakes. Mistakes can be fatal.

Retold Arabian Nights Tale: Ali Baba And 40 Thieves - 05

With slave-girl Marjina, Alibaba plans full Islamic burial rites for Qasim, but how to avoid suspicion?

Retold Arabian Nights Tale: Ali Baba And 40 Thieves - 12

Discovering thieves hidden in oil barrels frightens Marjina to death.

Could one literally die from fear?

Retold Arabian Nights tale: Ali Baba And 40 Thieves - 20

The Captain's pain morphed into anger.

Anger became blind hate. Hate gave him the purpose of his life.

Retold Arabian Nights tale: Ali Baba And 40 Thieves - 21

Thirst for vengeance rejuvenates the Captain.

He rides back to the city to discover more about his enemy

Retold Arabian Nights Tale: Ali Baba And 40 Thieves - 24

Dance ends in murder. Murder leads to discovery. Discovery to marriage.

But why didn’t Marjina feel scared?

Retold Arabian Nights Tale: Ali Baba And 40 Thieves - 25

Alibaba goes to the secret cave when thieves make no more moves.

What he finds, changes his life forever.

Anger Management Story: Angry Buddha

Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh shows how anger dissipates not from paying it lip service, but by mindfulness of it.

The two sat huddled cozily in his bed watching Encierro, the most famous event of the festival of San Fermín held in the city of Pamplona, Navarre.

With over a million global visitors annually, it had become probably the most internationally renowned fiesta in Spain.

"See, I can't even see what is so obvious to you. I am like these coffee beans soiling whatever they touch and completely useless thereafter."

"Wish I were more like these other two, still holding their own after all their troubles."

Hosh laughed. He knew that frogs were raunchy.

“The dumb shit didn't think," continued Josh, "about what would happen to him, or to his family if he fell from the Eiffel Tower and died. He tried climbing Mount Improbable."

"Did you hear what Jahanpanaah just said?" he asked the guard.

The guard nodded.

"Then go and fetch him at once," the attendant ordered.

"How do you make a ghost go away?" she asked again, staring wide-eyed into the darkness.

He awakened fully now. He sensed her stiff body, her cold hands under the covers.

“Will you leave us to beg on the streets?” Isha turned her face away in anguish, “while you illuminate the world. Why must Yashodharā always pay the price of Siddharth’s enlightenment?”

Her world was falling apart, and she with it. Rosh felt pity. He knew how hard it was going to be for her.

"I have left so much behind", Pi said, "In the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go."

"But what hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye."

Yann Martel's Life of Pi is reviewed by a school boy.

"Belief requires a leap of faith, and so it is a matter of our choice," he concludes.

Insightful story: Lion And The Mouse

The Aesop fable showed that mercy pays back.

But should kindness be only an investment for future returns?

Rosh’s face darkened at this barrage of profanity spewing out of his child’s mouth. Not caring to investigate the incident any further and uncaring about who was at fault, his temper flared.

“Shut your mouth”, he rebuked viciously, “It is like a sewer, with only dirt flowing through.”

The missing God meant BIG trouble for him, little Josh thought, given his mischief-making track record.

Funny story with a retold joke on how kids think...