Nahak chot Julāha khay.
‘He left his loom to see the fun and for no reason got a bruising.’ Another story (told by Fallon) is that being told by a soothsayer that it was written in his fate that his nose would be cut off with an axe, the weaver was incredulous and taking up an axe, kept flourishing it, saying—
Yon karba ta gor kātbon
Yon karba ta hāth kātbon
Aur yon karba tab nā——
‘If I do so I cut off my leg, if I do so I cut off my hand, but unless I do so my no——,’ and his nose was off. Another proverb Julāha jānathi jo katai, ‘Does a weaver know how to cut barley,’ refers to a story (in Fallon) that a weaver unable to pay his debt was set to cut barley by his creditor, who thought to repay himself in this way. But instead of reaping, the stupid fellow kept trying to untwist the tangled barley stems. Other proverbs at his expense are; ‘The Julāha went out to cut the grass at sunset, when even the crows were going home.’ ‘The Julāha’s brains are in his backside.’ His wife bears an equally bad character, as in the proverb: ‘A wilful Julāhin will pull her own father’s beard.’”
[1] Punjāb Ethnography, para. 612.
[2] This passage is taken from Sir G. Grierson’s Peasant Life in Bihār, p. 64.