Kabuliwala by Rabindranath Tagore

Kabuliwala is a Bengali short story written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1892, during Tagore’s “Sadhana” period (named for one of Tagore’s magazines) from 1891 to 1895. This story is one of the best stories written by Rabindranath Tagore.

This is very emotional and sensitive story which portrayed a father’s deep love for his daughter. This story is adapted many times as a Bengali and Hindi movie in 1957 and 1961 respectively and also as a part of television series named “Stories by Rabindranath Tagore”.

SUMMARY

The story opens with the narrator describing his five-year-old daughter Mini, who learned how to talk within a year of being born and practically hadn’t stopped talking since. Her mother often tells her to be quiet, but her father prefers to let her talk, so she talks to him often.

One morning, Mini chats with her father while he’s working on an adventure novel. She looks out the window and spots a man and starts calling him “Kabuliwala, Kabuliwala!” The man she’s shouting about is an Afghan named Rahamat in baggy clothes, walking along selling grapes and nuts. However, when he comes over, Mini runs into another room, convinced that his large bags are full of children, not goods.

A few days later, our narrator finds Kabuliwala sitting next to Mini with a pile of raisins and nuts in her lap, paying close attention as she talks and talks. He has given her some grapes and pistachios, so the narrator gives the Kabuliwala half a rupee and tells him not to give her any more treats.

Later, Mini’s mother finds her with the half-rupee and asks where she got it, and is displeased to hear she took money from the man.

Mini and the Kabuliwala develop a close relationship, spending time together every day joking around and talking. The narrator enjoys talking to Kabuliwala too, asking him about his home country of Afghanistan, and all about his travels. But Mini’s mother is alarmed by her daughter’s closeness with the man, worrying that he might try to abduct Mini. The narrator does not agree that there is any danger.

Every year in the middle of the month of Magh, the Kabuliwala returns home. Before making the trip, he goes around collecting money he is owed. But this year, the Kabuliwala gets into a fight with a man who owes him money and staggers him. As a result of this, he spends the next many years in prison, during which Mini grows up and starts enjoying the company of girls her age. The narrator more or less forgets about the Kabuliwala.

A few years later, the narrator and his wife are preparing for Mini’s wedding day. But on the day of Mini’s wedding, the Kabuliwala appears at the narrator’s house. Without a bag or his long hair, he is barely recognizable to the narrator, but he eventually welcomes him in. The narrator is uneasy, thinking about how the Kabuliwala is the only would-be murderer he’s ever known, and tells the visitor to leave. He complies.

But shortly after, the Kabuliwala returns, bringing a gift of grapes and pistachios for Mini. The narrator doesn’t tell him that it’s her wedding today, but simply repeats that there’s an engagement at their house and he must go. But Kabuliwala pulls “a crumpled piece of paper” out of the breast pocket of his shirt and shows the narrator the handprint of his daughter, Parvati, that he carries with him while he travels for work. He explains that he has a daughter back home in Afghanistan, and that Mini helps him deal with the heartache of being so far from her. The narrator is touched and gets Mini.

Mini and the Kabuliwala have an awkward exchange during which the Kabuliwala suddenly realizes that his daughter, like Mini, will have grown up and be different from the little girl he once knew. As Kabuliwala thinks about Afghanistan and his daughter, the narrator pulls out some money and asks Kabuliwala to use it so that he can return home  to Afghanistan to see his daughter. He tells Kabuliwala that, “by your blessed reunion, Mini will be blessed.” Giving Kabuliwala the money means that Mini’s wedding party is not as grand as it might have been, but the narrator is happy with it, believing that “the ceremony was lit by a kinder, more gracious light.”

Analysis

There are two central themes in this story, and Tagore masterfully plays them against each other to build tension in the narrative. The first key theme is otherness, with Kabuliwala standing as a clear outsider who speaks broken Bengali and dresses in a way that situates him outside of typical Bengali society. The narrator is fascinated by him in part because of the fact that he’s seen parts of the world that are so different from Calcutta, while the narrator’s wife distrusts him precisely because he is a foreigner, and perhaps one who will kidnap her child, which she thinks Afghanis are wont to do.

The other theme is doubling, as the narrator and the Kabuliwala are construed as mirror characters of one another. They are both shown as storytellers, and each is fascinated enough by Mini to listen to her talk for hours. But most importantly, Tagore reminds us that they’re both fathers, and the narrator seeing the Kabuliwala as a man who is heartsick over a daughter that he has not seen in years helps the narrator see the man as a human being, not as some would-be murderer.

The genius of the story is the fact that the climax seems to come when Kabuliwala stabs the debtor, which would confirm the narrator’s wife’s worst fears that this outsider is dangerous. During what seems like the denouement of the story, the Kabuliwala returns and the narrator, who has clearly spent the intervening years considering the man a would-be murderer, tries to brush this outsider off.

But then the real climax comes. The Kabuliwala pulls out the piece of paper with his daughter’s handprint inscribed on it. This image draws a link between the narrator and Kabuliwala as men with daughters they love dearly. With the move to bond the narrator and the Kabuliwala, Tagore crafts a tale about finding common humanity despite all of the differences that two men may have.

It’s worth noting here that one of the things that makes Tagore such an innovator given the context he was writing in was his unconventional narrative structure. Indeed, this story doesn’t play out over some sort of conflict and resolution like a typical narrative (or the adventure stories that the narrator writes) might. Instead, Tagore develops a set of relationships and shows us how those relationships play out when tempered by the sands of time.