Kabuliwala

My five-year-old daughter, Mini, cannot live without chattering. I really believe she has never wasted a minute of her life in silence.

Her mother is often cross about it and would like to stop her talk, but I would not. To see Mini quiet is unnatural, and I cannot bear it for long. So the two of us have a great many conversations.

One morning, as I sat writing the seventeenth chapter of my novel, Mini ran to the window and began shouting.

"Kabuliwala! Kabuliwala!"

The man from Kabul

Down in the street walked a tall, untidy man in loose, dusty clothes, with a turban on his head and a bag on his shoulder. He carried boxes of grapes, raisins and almonds. He was one of the fruit-sellers who came down every winter from Afghanistan to sell their goods in Calcutta.

The moment he turned towards our house, Mini ran shrieking to hide. She had a secret belief that if you looked inside his bag, you would find two or three children like herself.

I called him in and bought something. We talked a little about the frontier and the Russians and the English. As he left, he asked, "And where is the little girl, sir?"

I fetched Mini. She stood by my chair, looking suspiciously at the giant. He offered her nuts and raisins through the bars, but she would not take them, and clung to my knee.

That was their first meeting.

Best friends

A few days later, I came out of the house and was astonished to find Mini sitting on a bench by the door, laughing and talking, with the great Kabuliwala at her feet. In all her life she had never found such a patient listener, except her father. Her little sari was stuffed with almonds and raisins.

His name was Rahamat. Every day he came, and every day the two of them shared their jokes.

"Little one," he would say, "when are you going to your father-in-law's house?"

In Bengal, a girl hears about her "father-in-law's house" from her earliest years, meaning the home she will go to when she marries. But we were a little modern, and Mini had no idea what it meant. So she would answer with a question of her own: "Are you going to your father-in-law's house?"

Rahamat would shake his huge fist at an imaginary father-in-law and say, "Oh, I'll thrash him!" And Mini would collapse with laughter at the thought of this poor, unknown person being thrashed.

The quarrel

Every year, towards the end of winter, Rahamat would go home. One morning, before he was due to leave, I heard an uproar in the street. Rahamat was being led away by two policemen, his clothes stained with blood.

A man had owed him money for a shawl and had lied, saying he had never bought it. In the quarrel, Rahamat had struck him with his knife.

At that moment Mini ran out. "Kabuliwala! Kabuliwala! Are you going to your father-in-law's house?"

Rahamat laughed, even then. "Just where I'm going, little one." And he held up his hands, which were tied. "I would have thrashed that old father-in-law, but my hands are bound."

He was sentenced to some years in prison.

The wedding day

Time passed and he was forgotten. Mini grew up, made new friends, and spent less time with her father. And the years went by.

Then came the morning of Mini's wedding. The house was full of noise, lamps and the music of the shehnai. Into the courtyard walked a man I did not recognise at first: thin, without his long hair, with no bag and no strength left in his body. Then I knew him. It was Rahamat, released from prison that very morning.

"It's a busy day," I said. "You had better go."

He turned to leave. Then he stopped at the door. "May I not see the little one, sir, just for a moment?"

He believed Mini was still the same small child, that she would run to him calling "Kabuliwala!" as she used to. He had even brought a few grapes and almonds, wrapped in paper, begged perhaps from a fellow countryman.

"There's a ceremony in the house," I said. "You won't be able to see anyone today."

His face fell. He offered me the little packet. "I brought these for her, sir. Please give them to her."

I took it, and was about to pay him, when he caught my hand.

"You are very kind, sir. Don't give me money. You have a little girl. I too have one, like her, in my own house. I think of her, and that is why I bring fruit to your child. I do not come to make a profit."

He put his hand inside his big loose robe and brought out a small, dirty piece of paper. Very carefully he unfolded it and smoothed it out on my table.

On it was the print of a tiny hand. Not a photograph, not a drawing. Just the impression of a little hand, smeared with soot. This was the memory of his own daughter that he carried with him every year, when he came to sell his fruit in the streets of Calcutta.

My eyes filled with tears. I forgot that he was a poor fruit-seller from Kabul and that I was a Bengali gentleman. I understood that he was a father, as I was.

Mini

I sent for Mini. She came, in her wedding silk, with the red sandal-paste on her forehead, and stood shyly before him.

The Kabuliwala looked at her in amazement. He could not bring back their old friendship. At last he smiled and said, "Little one, are you going to your father-in-law's house?"

Now Mini understood the meaning of the words. She blushed, could not answer, and turned away.

Rahamat sat down on the floor. He realised that his own daughter, too, must have grown up while he was away, and that he would have to get to know her all over again. She would not be the child he remembered.

I took out a banknote and gave it to him. "Go home to your daughter, Rahamat," I said. "And may your meeting bring good fortune to my child."

Because of that gift, I had to cut back on the wedding celebrations. There were no electric lights and no military band, and the women of the house were disappointed. But to me the wedding feast was brighter, because I knew that somewhere far away, a long-lost father would meet his only child again.

About this story

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1913. He wrote "Kabuliwala" in Bengali in 1892, and it has been loved in India ever since, including in famous films. This is a shortened retelling; the original is in the public domain.