Although it took us over a year to finally procure a copy and read Haksar's translation of the Sanskrit Shuka Saptati, it was an enjoyable experience. A frame story consisting of several interlinked short tales connected to the subject of marital infidelity, a parrot convinces a married woman to not cheat her on merchant husband traveling abroad. As you can probably guess, story collections like these were translated into Persian and probably influenced some of the story cycles of the Middle East, too. These amusing tales of cheating wives, clever individuals and the occasional animal fable are not equal in comedy or wit, but very enlightening on an interesting past in which women seem to have had more sexual liberties than today.
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