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The present book is a re-creation of one of Rumi's famous anecdotes. The distinctive feature of this book is that a coffeehouse painting is used for its illustration. Coffeehouse painting is one of the Iranian painting styles which is implemented by oil paint. One of the applications of coffeehouse painting is in Naghali (narration). Naghal (a narrator) is someone who recounts Iranian myths and epics in verse and prose with the help of music and slides of coffeehouse paintings live to the audience. The tradition of Naghali (narration), which is registered as an intangible cultural heritage in UNESCO is one of the oldest methods of Iranian storytelling. The parrot and the merchant, with its special illustrations, seems to be the same Naghali (narration) who has been written this time and turned into a book. A merchant living in distant lands has a beautiful talking parrot that he is very interested in. This parrot has been with him all the moments of the merchant's life and all this time he has been imprisoned in a silver cage with a golden bar. The merchant, who has to go to India for trade, asks all his relatives what souvenirs they want. When it comes to the parrot, it says, "If you go to the forests of India and see other parrots that are free and live happily on the trees, ask them what I should do with this grief of loneliness and confinement". The merchant goes to the forest and conveys his parrot message to the Indian parrots. Upon hearing this, one of the parrots falls from the tree and dies. The merchant returns regretful and upset and describes what he saw to his parrot. Upon hearing this story, the merchant’s astute parrot also falls from the gold bar and dies. The merchant opens the cage with tears and grief to get the parrot out. Unaware that the parrots have participated in making a clever plan.
