Nim Hakim was not a man of extraordinary ability. One day, when he was passing by a house, people came out and stopped him. “Please come in,” they told him, “and examine our hostess, she is sick.”
- Why me? - Nim Hakim was surprised.
“A long time ago, a wise man predicted her illness and said that only something white, located five feet above the ground, could cure her. When we were looking for such an item, we saw you wearing a white hat and realized that you are exactly five feet tall. We actually want to use your hat.
“It’s strange,” thought Nim Hakim, but he still entered the house and stood at the feet of the sick woman.
After she looked at him for a while, she actually felt better and even sat up on the bed.
“I am a born doctor,” Nim Hakim said to himself. He forgot that he was just a tool.
This led to a series of strange events.
He decided that his current life as a student was just a waste of time - he needed to go out into the world and achieve recognition. First of all, Nim Hakim went to the baker and asked him to bake a flatbread for the journey.
Then he set off.
Soon he reached a place where no one had heard anything about him. He noticed that local residents had one problem. The wild elephant regularly made devastating raids on their fields, and trampled people who got in the way to death.
“I have a cure for all diseases,” Nim Hakim told them and began to wait for the elephant to appear. Almost immediately everyone heard him, trumpeting loudly, walking through the streets of the capital.
Everyone immediately ran away. Nim Hakim also ran, because he realized that this was something completely different than standing by a sick bed. However, the elephant grabbed him with its trunk, threw him to the ground and began to eat the bread that fell out of the bag.
While the stunned Nim Hakim lay motionless, the elephant suddenly began to tilt to one side and fell. After waiting a little, people left their houses to see what had happened to their defender. They managed to see the elephant fall and die. Nim Hakim was brought to the king in triumph.
None of them knew that the baker, who hated Nim Hakim for his arrogance and owed him a considerable amount of money, decided to poison him and put so much poison in the bread that it was enough even for an elephant.
The king, delighted at the happy deliverance of his people, gave Nim Hakim a new name - Nim Mulla. Hakim means doctor, and Mulla means master: after all, what Nim did was more a manifestation of skill than healing.
“Call me master if you like,” said Nim disdainfully, “but I demand that as a reward I be entrusted with the command of your entire army: after all, this elephant constantly put it to flight.”
Partly out of fear, partly out of admiration, partly out of a desire to include such a man in his retinue, the king gave him the full title of "Marshal of All Armies, Nim Mullah."
Time passed, Nim spent years preaching his importance, and those who knew about his feat gathered around him.
Many people tried to imitate him, but no matter how they looked at the sick, no matter how they tried to kill the elephants running past, nothing worked. “Don’t give up trying,” Nim told them. However, the failures of his followers, coupled with his success, further strengthened the belief that he was in some way a superman. Be that as it may, this is how it seemed to everyone interested, and no one had a different opinion - Nim was firmly established in his role.
One day a man-eating tiger appeared in the country. He regularly sneaked into some village and always left with the victim. Finally, people turned to their hero, Grand Marshal Nimes, with a request to rid them of this tiger.
At the head of a huge army, Nim marched against the tiger. The scouts soon tracked down the cannibal. But, as soon as they heard his voice, the army, as usual, fled, leaving their leader alone with danger. After all, they told each other, he was a superman, and it was his job to handle such matters. Nim, seeing the tiger with his own eyes and being scared to death, immediately climbed the nearest tree. The tiger sat down near a tree and began to wait. It was a real siege. Every night Nim trembled from a menacing growl, and with each passing day, both of them became more hungry.
At the end of the week, the tiger roared especially loudly, and Nim, weak from hunger and fatigue, was seized with such strong trembling that the dagger fell from his belt. Just at this moment the tiger opened its mouth for another roar.
The dagger hit him straight in the throat, killing him outright. Only after some time did Nim realize what had happened.
“It is clear that I am a special instrument of Fate, and therefore the greatest man alive,” he said to himself.
Nim climbed down from the tree, cut off the tiger's ears and returned with them to the king. He was immediately declared the Greatest Winner in the State.
Soon the Greatest Conqueror received news of an invasion of his country by the army of a neighboring state. Despite all the miracles that had protected him in the past, this time Nim was afraid. That same night, having collected all his gold and silver, he mounted the fastest horse and, until the sun rose, tried to ride as far as possible.
But as he rode past the enemy camp, his horse stumbled in the darkness. Precious trays and plates fell to the ground with a terrible crash. The enemy soldiers, thinking that they were under attack, grabbed their weapons and rushed into battle. They fought each other bravely. The battle was so terrible that no one was left alive.
The scouts of the royal army found Nim behind the boulders, almost paralyzed with fear, and carried him in triumph to the royal throne.
There were no more tense situations in his life, and he lived calmly to an old age. This is why you hear so much about the Great Nim, who performed miracles and was never defeated. Every nation, whether it knows it or not, has its own Nim, who lived in the distant romantic past under one name or another.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru