Idioms & proverbs are an integral part of any language. This series features some pearls of wisdom from Hindi and its dialects. In this post – घी सिकारी खीचड़ी, नाम बहू को होय
Idioms & proverbs are pearls of wisdom that offer advice or insights into life while imparting to the language a more vivid colour. These pearls are rooted deep in the culture of the language and its people.
Saying:
घी सिकारी खीचड़ी, नाम बहू को होय ।
Ghee makes the khichadi tasty, daughter-in-law gets the credit.
Meaning:
Rajasthani cooking is partial to ghee, and uses it in copious amounts even in simple dishes like khichadi. However, ghee was considered expensive and hence budget-conscious housewives would use it sparingly. This would lead to complaints about the taste by the men of the house which were judiciously ignored by the ladies.
When the young daughter-in-law of the family cooked a meal, she was not as budget conscious as her mother-in-law and hence used more ghee in it than her MIL usually did. This made it taste better to the menfolk who complemented her on her cooking skills. Hence the MIL said “it was the ghee which made khichadi tasty, but it is the DIL who got the credit”.
This saying is used when someone gets credit for a success which was caused not by their effort but by environmental or factors outside their control.
Interested in more information on any of the above topics? Please comment on this post, and I will try to write about them soon.
Beyond Words 