The Kabuliwala
–
Rabindranath Tagore
About the Author:
He was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his legion’s literature and music. He is the author of
Gitanjali and its “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse”, he became the first non-
European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. In translation, his poetry was viewed as
spiritual and mercurial. His seemingly mesmeric personality, flowing hair and other worldly dress
earned him a prophetic like reputation in the West. His “elegant prose and magical poetry”
remain largely unknown outside Bengal. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the
use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based
on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing the best of Indian culture to the
West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern
India.
A Pirali Brahmin from Calcutta, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen,
he released his first substantial poems under the psendonym Bhanusimha (“Sun Lion”) which
were seized upon.by literary authorities as long lost classics. He graduated to his first short
stories and dramas under the aegis of his birth name by 1877. As a humanist, universal
internationalist and strident anti-nationalist he denounced the Raj and advocated independence
from Britain. As an exponent of Bengal Renaissance, he advocated a vast canon that comprised
of paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts and some two thousand songs, his legacy
endures also in the institution he founded, Viswa Bharti University.
Summary:
Widowed Abdul Rahmat Khan is an Afghani Pathan, who lives a simple and poor lifestyle with
his widowed mom, and daughter, Amina, in Kabul. He owes money to a money lender that he
has borrowed for Amina’s medical treatment, and is un-able to repay it. He decides to secretly
re-locate to Hindustan, without the knowledge of Amina, and he does so in the dark of the night.
Upon arrival in Hindustan, he finds that the locals actually fear him and his kind and blame them
for kidnapping young children. A depressed Abdul is unable to get Amina out of his mind, and
spends a week without doing any business. After that he sets out to sell dry fruits on the streets.
It is here that he meets a young girl, Mini, who lives with her mom Rama, and her dad, a writer.
Rama is overly cautious and will not permit Mini to see Abdul, while her dad permits her to do so.
Abdul sees Amina in Mini and visits her everyday, pampering her with dry fruits. On her birthday,
Mini misses him and goes out to look for him and gets lost. Rama thinks that Abdul has
abducted her, so does an angry crowd, who find her with him and beat him. Mini’s dad
apologizes to Abdul when he finds out the truth. But this out-going has a serious repercussion on
Mini and she becomes very ill, but with prayers from Rama and Abdul she does recover. Then
their lives are again turned upside down when Abdul is arrested by police for knifing to death a
man named Ram Bharosa. He is sentenced to 10-years in jail. When he is out of jail, he comes
to meet Mini but she is a grown-up girl now, is due to get married on the same day. The sight fills
him with a deep nostalgia and he realises that it is probably time for his daughter also to get
settled in life. He leaves the place with tears in his eyes and decides to return home.
Critical Appreciation:
Kabuliwala is a short story written by Rabindranath Tagore. It is a story which deals with
Kabuliwala (Abdul Rahmat Khan) and his customer Mini. Kabuliwala is basically a hawker who
comes to Calcutta from Afghanistan. He befriends a small Bengali girl called Mini who used to remind him of his own daughter Amina back in Afghanistan. Though he was not in touch with his
daughter, her memory didn’t fade away from his mind. Later things went wrong and one of
Kabuliwala’s customer didn’t return his money. When asked about for returning, the customer
starts abusing him which makes Kabuliwala aggressive and he stabs the customer when he
refuses to stop abusing him. This brings imprisonment upon Kabuliwala for 10 years. On the day
of his release he goes to see Mini, but discovers that Mini has grown up and is about to get
married, Her parents were reluctant to let a murderer see their daughter. The sight of Mini in a
bridal wear kindled in him the memories of his daughter, who he never thought would grow up
like Mini. He had tears in his eyes. Her dad identified Rahmat, as a father and gave him a bank
note, so that he could go back to his country and see his daughter, whose finger prints he
carried all the time. The story is all about the beautiful relation between the daughter and her
father. Though separated physically, the memories sustain our love for oua child. Only we need
a spark to light up those memories. Such was the case with Mini who woke up the affection in
Kabuliwala, for his long-forgotten daughter in a far away land.
Characterisation:
Mr. Abdul Rehmat Khan :
Rahmat is displayed with a powerful presence that is indicated underneath the surface. On
face value, he is a fruit seller and Tagore describes him with an almost wanderer like
quality. The impression of him at the first description is that he is one that causes an
immediate sense of fear in Mini, the child who is afraid because he captures children and
places them in his large bag that he has across his shoulder. Other times, Tagore draws out
his character as one who forges a bond with the little girl. He is committed to seeing her
every day, “bribing” her with almonds and raisins. Tagore plays with the reader in this
description, almost trying to tease the reader into believing something sinister in Rahmat’s
actions in expressing the concerns that the wife of the narrator has in the story. The familiar
question that helps to forge the bond between Rahmat and the girl involves him asking her
when she’s going to her fatherinIaw’s house. The fact that he returns after he was
imprisoned and asks the girl the same question on the eve of her marriage helps to allow a
fuller understanding of the new aged fruit seller. His bond with the girl is representative of
the bond he wished to have with his own daughter in his native Afghanisthan When he asks
the girl the same question on the eve of her wedding, it is a moment, a reflection, of his own
life and how his own girl would be preparing for marriage, while Rahmat could not be there
for his own daughter, he is there for this girl. The sentiment of yearing for what he cannot be
and seeking to bring it into existence with what is in front of us is heightened when Rahmat
takes out a small piece of paper with handprints his daughter. It is at this moment that the
speaker, and the reader, understand the pain and yearing that exists in this man. His
wandering is not as physical as much as it is emotional, to find some resemblance of
personal contentment the world and the condition that is predisposed to not giving it.
Mini :
Mini is a little five year old girl when we first meet her in the story. She is an extremely
talkative girl who prattles all the time. When we meet her first, she is sitting under the table
of her father and asking her father numerous questions one by one, without letting her
father answer any them. She sees the Kabuliwaia from the window and calls him and
immediately runs away as she is fearful of the Kabuliwala. She thinks that Kabuliwalas
catch children and put them in large bags which they carry on their shoulders. All these
aspects present Mini as a sweet natured child. Her nature finds its beauty when we see her
befriending Kabuliwala very soon after the initial fear is over.
z But as happens with children, she forgets everything about the Kabuliwala once he
vanishes from her sight when the Kabuliwala was sent to prison for stabbing a customer
who abused him. And after some years when the Kabuliwala returns on her wedding day,
she is not able to recognize him.
The Narrator :
The Narrator: The narrator is another major character in the story. He is the ‘I’ in the story,
through whose point of view, the entire story is narrated. The narrator is an author by
profession, and right in the beginning we are told that when the Kabuliwala arrives, he is
busy writing the seventeenth chapter of his new novel.
The narrator is rather a busy man, and he does not like being interrupted in his work.
Although he does not mind his daughter’s presence, when it comes to the Kabuliwala, he
feels that the peddler’s visit certainly would disturb him in is work.
Mini’s Mother :
Mini’s Mother: Mini’s mother is also an important character in the story. She is a typical housewife from the aristocratic Bengali family. Describing her, the narrator says. ‘Mini’s mother is unfortunately a very timid lady. Whenever she hears a noise in the street, or sees people coming towards the house, she always jumps to the conclusion that they are either thieves, or drunkards, or snakes, or tigers.
She is paranoid about the Kabuliwala’s relationship with Mini. She suspects that the man is trying to befriend her little daughter, with the intention of kidnapping her and taking her away to Kabul. She has heard tales of child lifting and slavery in the far away land called Afghanistan.
