Bhai Lalo
Carpenter of Saidpur whose coarse bread, earned by honest work, Guru Nanak chose over the feast of the official Malik Bhago.
Bhai Lalo was a carpenter of Saidpur, now Eminabad near Gujranwala, at whose house Guru Nanak stayed on his travels.
The famous story is that Malik Bhago, a rich official of the town, held a great feast and invited the holy man. Guru Nanak stayed with Lalo instead and ate his dry bread. When Bhago demanded to know why, the Guru squeezed Lalo's bread in one hand and Bhago's rich food in the other; from Lalo's came milk, and from Bhago's came blood, wrung from the poor.
It became the founding parable of the Sikh value of kirat karni, honest labour, and Guru Nanak addresses one of his hymns on Babur's invasion of Saidpur to Lalo by name. Gurdwara Rori Sahib in Eminabad marks the place.
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Guru Nanak's visit to Bhai Lalo the carpenter, from a manuscript of the Janam SakhiAsian Art Museum, San Francisco · photo Wikimedia Commons (Wikimedia Commons) ↗
Guru Nanak with Bhai Lalo 19th century painting about Guru Nanak from the Janam Sakhi…National Museum, New Delhi · photo Satdeep Gill (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY ↗