उड़द पर सफ़ेदी जितना uRad par safedi jitnaa

Film: Pukar

Year of release: 1939

Spoken by: Sangram Singh's daughter (Unknown)

Spoken to: Sangram Singh (Sohrab Modi)

Dialogue writer: Kamal Amrohi

Sangram Singh requests his daughter to sew his cloak (giriibaan ka tukmaa or button loop of opening of the cloak). As she sews it, he complains to her about his wife (her mother). His wife had helped his son (a fugitive from law) escape from his house. He was miffed with her favouring the son over the husband. The daughter tries to stand up for her mother and says,

"maa ko apni aulaad se bahut zyaadaa pyaar hota hai”

Sangram asks “aur baap ko nahiin hotaa?”

“hotaa hai, uRad par safedi jitnaa”

"होता है, उड़द पर सफ़ेदी जितना" 

There is an idiom in hindi – uRad par safedi baraabar bhi sharm na honaa. Which means having no shame at all. I used to wonder what it meant because as a kid the only uRad (a type of pulse common in India) I had seen was completely white. It's only later that I realised that uRad is basically black and the white variety that I was seeing was the 'dhuli' or the skinned variety. Hence there is hardly any white visible in a heap of uRad. However if you take the dhuli variety, there is only white visible. Hence this idiom (and hence this dialogue) is relevant only for the whole uRad (the unskinned variety).