- English translation
Fine clothes and public display cannot make someone forget the lowly life they came from.
- Literal wording
Even if they dress the dog in Kashmir cloth and parade it among the procession drums, it will not forget the call “kish-kish” or its sleeping place in the filth pool.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying contrasts lavish treatment and ceremonial display with memories of a humble, degraded past. It maintains that a person who rises in standing still remembers the condition from which they came.
Historically, it frames that earlier condition through contemptuous dog-and-filth imagery. It expresses a harsh social judgment, not a neutral or reliable claim that people cannot change or outgrow their circumstances.
- When it is used
Use it to voice the view that social elevation or splendid treatment does not erase memories of a formerly lowly condition. Because its imagery can demean people by treating low status as an insult, it is strongly contemptuous and unsuitable for respectful reference to people.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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