Proverbs of Kashmir, Part 1

• Proverbs of Kashmir T

Proverbs of Kashmir

The most educated guys are enchanting and laugh too

If you don't have an enemy, don't you have a cousin?

It may not pay to weigh everyone in the same scales. (- it suggests a lost sense of discrimination).*

A lie doesn't have a foot to stand on.

Never scatter pearls for the cocks. (Don't waste good advice on the foolish).*

To get silk from a stone. (An impossible task).

May God save me from the one I saved (brought up, too).*

You may adopt an indirect approach to reach your goal.*

To show one's fist to a blind man is neither a sin nor a virtue. (Advice can be lost on stupid people).

The bachelors crave to get married, and the married ones regret they got married.

A truly educated person is a gem.*

Distance lends enchantment.*

Prosperity teaches one, and poverty puts one to shame.

She wants to have buttermilk, but has hidden the pot brought for it behind one's back. (She wants to have something, but feels shy in asking for it).

An idle person may have just three tasks: sleeping, eating and quarrelling.*

The wiser the man, the more in trouble.

A very jealous person is glad when somebody else cries, and sighs when others laugh.*

The lightest is to be barefooted. (No property, no worries).

Welcome an opportunity as it comes.*

Unity can be equal to a thousand golden coins.*

The flea sinned, the reed-mat got the beating.*

When pumpkins are watered, brinjals also get watered. (Some small people are often benefited when the benefit is given to the big ones).

The mother keeps on caring for her daughter while the daughter keeps on craving for her husband.

A human being is quite impatient. (2)

Lice flourish in rags.

Anyone can be trapped.

One may be generous at heart, but may not be able to afford it.

It can be impossible to change an established image.*

One man cut the bund/barrage, and a thousand people fell into the river.

A confused man is like the drowning man who asks for pears from the willow tree. (A confused person doesn't know what is good for him).

One should strive to maintain one's honour (Dastar (rather frail headgear) represents honour here).

People pretend to dislike what they cannot get.

Good people have set sail to arrive at such gentleness as cuts like diamonds

Don't build the bungalow on an inch of ground. (Cf. Don't build castles in the air).*

Nine days wonders are forgotten soon after that.*

To search for thorns in the milk. (An expression for criticizing without justification).

First for self, then for the stranger. (Charity begins at home).

It may be easier to perceive error than to find truth. (The latter lies in the depth, where few try to search).

A king for a moment, and a beggar soon after (One's fortune can change very fast).

Economize expenditure. (4)

Good people are gentle.

One man's beard is on fire, and another man warms his hands on it. (On taking advantage of someone's misery).

It does not pay to talk a lot. (Brevity is the soul of wit).

The income is like jasmine. (Its scent is lovely).

"Mother, no one abuses me." - "Go and sit by the roadside." (In other words: Ask for problems and you will get them).

Diamond cuts diamond.

The customers are known to the shopkeeper.

Prosperity improves one's personality, adversity cripples it.

Rice tastes good when properly cooked, and talking is good when the opportunity is ripe. (Strike when the iron is hot).

One should try to get enormously benefited by a small effort.*

One should set sails with the tide.

The sparrow feels comfortable on the thorn bush.

Relations last longer when the family is in distress

Unwanted meddling in affairs could prove harmful.*

Maybe a naked person should not be taken to a cloth shop. (It can be so difficult to control the desires of someone who is in great need).*

Good connections should pay.* (6)

Whatever has bloomed, has bloomed from the very bud. (Cf. Coming events cast their shadows before them).

Relations last longer when transactions are clean.*

To smell one's own bosom is fit. (Introspection).*

While alive in rags; when dead in satin to cover the body.*

The members of the family are in distress, but the idols are worshipped. (7)

To chalk out preventive measures in good time before an emergency is much warranted.*

Strive to live well within your means.

Summary

1. The most educated guys are enchanting and have hearty laughs too.
2. Good people have set sail to arrive at such gentleness as cuts like diamonds.
3. Relations last longer when the family is in distress.

Modest in conversation, but . . .

Indirect Benefits for You Are Possible

• Read the series of utterances much like modern poetry - minding that each proverbial statement may stand on its own legs. Some may be tricky to understand and hard to digest, but that rests with you; feel free to do as you please.
• From Kashmir or not, we can learn still more if we extract new, stringed meanings from series of these proverbs. Then you realise that Danish poet is surprisingly right in one of his small, elegant verses:

  Who thinks a joke is only a joke, and seriousness only serious, / has, in fact, understood both of them poorly.
  - Piet Hein, Kumbel's Gruk

• The serial arrangement of costly sayings is a table, an acrostic table, even. By understanding some suitable norms or points! that seem decent, pleasant and all right for you where you are, and blending them well, you get more resources, and that is what good learning is about. These sayings can easily be combined in certain ways (I have a metrics for that), to the end that it divulges "There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them," just as the physicist Werner Heisenberg has uttered.
• Based on your blends of criss-crossed keynotes and fin points derived from the series you dig into, you can form good proverbs, slapstick sayings, small refrains, and favour learning artistry in this way. Later you use the best blends or amalgamated half-norms to form your own training program that helps you on and up, hopefully, to cope better, if that is minded. We can make the proverbs of our own and other cultures fit into a ready-made sort of training-program. It is a design for handling or tackling certain things better - here on top of humour, or allied with it, rather. There are no other, better ways of teaching proverbs like it. Essentially, each proverb matters, and put together in the way as is used here, it can be turned into a step in a "welcoming climb, a rung in a ladder that can be used to entertain and also may be used in a step-by-step training program if enough time and care is put into it. That may be hard. But the possibility is there.