“Yah Yah ka kulma partraya
Gudhê sê admi bunaya.”
Which means, “I have taught him the creed of Yah Yah, or of the righteous ones, and though he came to me an Ass I have made him into a man. You ungrateful wretch! I will have nothing further to say to him, and you may take him out of the school.” Upon this the man left the Priest and went away down the road.
The ignorant old Washerman and his equally old and ignorant wife having been silent listeners of all this conversation, put their heads together, and began to talk of what they had heard. The Washerman said to his wife, “Did you not hear the Priest say that he had changed an ‘ass’ into ‘a man,’ and you know Priests can do wonderful things! I am just thinking that if he could work a change in our ‘ass’ and make out of him a ‘son’ for us, what a blessing it would be! For we have only this one thing short of being completely happy.” The old wife eagerly caught at the idea, and replied, “Yes! Allah has given us much wealth, but what good will it be to us when we die; strangers will get it; but if we had a son he would inherit it, and our cup of joy on earth would be full to the brim. Let us go to the Priest, and make a bargain with him, that the curse of having no son may no longer rest upon us.”
Whereupon they both sought an audience of the Priest, and approaching him, said, “Oh Sir! we are both very old, as you see, but we have plenty of money; but Sir, saddest of all things to tell you is that we are childless. Now Sir, we overheard you say that you had transformed an ass into a man. We have an ass, but we have not a son; would you be so good as to change him for us, and we will give you any sum that you like to name.”
The Priest was struck all of a heap with surprise and astonishment at this preposterous request, he said nothing for some minutes, but simply stared at the aged old couple while he collected his thoughts. “These people must clearly have heard me speaking angrily to the father of the worthless scholar, and have taken my words altogether in a literal sense, but here is evidently a run of luck for me which must not be thrown away.” Thus he soliloquised, and the old couplet fixed itself in his thoughts,
Gân kê pooreh-get muth ki heenay
Khuda tujhê deta-mai leta keunnahin.
TRANSLATION.
These are rich in purse but weak in intellect;