Kabuliwala — The Short Story by Rabindranath Tagore
Critical Analysis
This short story “Kabuliwal” is written by Rabindranath Tagore in the early 20th century Kolkata. It is about a little girl named Mini and Kabuliwala exploring both the bonds of friendship, love, and diversity in relationships beyond race, religion and language boundaries. In this short story, there are two main characters Kabuliwala and Mini. Kabuliwala’s name was Abdur Rehman Khan, a middle-aged seller of Pathan, an Afghan fruit seller, coming to Kolkata, leaving his family and especially his beloved daughter, whereas Mini was a talkative girl all day who likes to know about the things all day. In this short, the writer has explored different thematic elements, such as Father-daughter relationship, friendship, sacrifice, etc.
Critical Analysis
At the beginning of this story, the writer has immediately established a close connection between the narrator and his little daughter Mini. Mini’s regular conversation, especially from such a young age, reveals a natural curiosity about the world around her father, who enjoys a lot talking with Mini as he does when talking to her. The little girl, Mini, is not just a curious but also an intelligent child. As a result, her mind wandered one after another, leaving
his father in a hurry to keep up with his train of thought. Clearly, Mini enjoys reading and knowing and is proud of the fact that she knows the “right” name of the crow and is not taken from Bhola’s myth as he said “the elephant in the sky.” The narrator is also willing to participate with her but also wants to teach her more and correct her mistakes. One sinless exchange — one day, Mini’s mother had reprimanded Mini for bothering her by asking too
many questions, which highlights the nature of the play, and the mother-daughter relationship they have with each other. The narrator majorly likes to work on adventurous stories, which take on new significance over time, revealing how dedicated he is to travel the world. Through his writing narrator goes in-depth about adventure and continues to explore the world. One day, when Mini calls the Kabuliwala, the narrator sees Kabuliwala as a “ trouble” for him, which shows that he has already considered such people (Kabuliwala) as unequal and her as less important than his peers.
The curious and enthusiastic Mini suddenly becomes shy here; when Kabuliwala comes up to the house, her new fear overcomes the curiosity she showed earlier when she started shouting about Kabuliwala. At this moment, the narrator shows his desire to “destroy” the “groundless fears” in the Mini because, in the end, he wants to teach her more about the world so that she will not be so afraid of it in the future. When Kabuliwala asks for Mini, the narrator calls her, showing how she will learn to act bravely and move forward with greater confidence in this new challenge. After the first meet with Kabuliwala, Mini and Kabuliwala have forged some sort of connection, which is surprising because Mini had previously been afraid of Kabuliwala. In this interaction with Mini, Kabuliwala also appears to play the role of the father, and the way how he listens to Mini entirely matches with the narrator’s accent when he listens to Mini. However, the narrator still sees Kabuliwala as a fruit seller who is trying to make money, which is why the narrator gives him half a rupee when Kabuliwala makes the Mini happy by giving some nuts. Once again, the close relationship between Mini and her parents is reflected in the narrator’s decision when he rescues Mini from her mother’s wrath and allows her to talk with Kabuliwala. The narrator becomes happy to see Mini and Kabuliwala get together, he also enjoys their jokes, but it is something he is, he is out of it and he has no part in it. This seems to indicate the distance between them as they grow older. Interestingly, the narrator is unwilling to talk to Mini about his future marriage (which will soon happen to Mini’s possible future), but other Bengali girls of the Mini’s age know very well about their marriage, but here narrator and Mini’s mother does not talk about her future wedding, which shows that they are progressive people. On the other hand, when Mini ask Rahamat’s (Kabuliwala) about śvaśur-bāṛi, then he always makes a joke that invokes fear about the marriage inside the Mini. This shows how both these men (Kabuliwala and narrator) fear the day when Mini will get married (as revealed later, by Rahamat, Mini’s growth means her daughter will have grown up) and leave them alone. They do not want to be replaced by a father-in-law, which will definitely happen when Mini gets married. The unfulfilled desire of the narrator for traveling the world is reflected in an adventure book that he discussed at the beginning of this
story. Something near friendship is established between Rahamat and the narrator because Rahamat can satisfy the narrator’s curiosity about distant lands, people, animals, and cultures as he has traveled more than the narrator. Furthermore, Rahamat’s description of deserts and peoples is one of the earliest indications that her country is Afghanistan, far from where she sells fruit in India. However, for the narrator, this puts forward the seemingly insurmountable difference between him and Rahamat, which prevents them from building meaningful communication with each other. At one level, the narrator understands his wife’s concerns — and both of them certainly believe they are caring about Mini and gonna make decisions based on what they think is best for her — but at another level, the narrator doesn’t want his daughter to grow up with afraid of the outside world as
like her mother. Moreover, he sees how happy Mini is in his friendship with Rahamat, which is something he began to enjoy. Their disagreement over Rahamat’s visit to their house reveals two different ways in which the narrator and Mini’s mother have shown their love for her: Mini’s mother tries to protect her from the outside world, whereas her father wants her to explore the
world with freedom. Despite his wife’s assurance that Minnie is safe with Rahamat, the narrator expresses her new fears by describing Rahamat’s night vision as frightening. This fear reflects the same fear he has in traveling outside Calcutta himself, which has “judged” him in his home for the
rest of his life. However, he is pleased to see the innocence of Mini, which shows a complete lack of fear from Rahamat.
Finally, the appearance of brutal and handcuffed Rahamat led by two policemen (one of whom is armed with a knife ) confirms the great fear of Mini’s mother’s Rahamat. However, the narrator called him “our Rahamat,” indicating how much the narrator had accepted Rahamat as a family
friend. Apart from the fact that Rahamat is in a very bad situation (imprisonment means that he will spend most of that time away from home), her love for Mini motivates her to stay strong and protect her from the knowledge that something very disturbing and dark has happened. Between seeing these handcuffs, knife, and the clothes she is wearing, this could be the beginning of Mini’s understanding of what the word śvaśur-bāṛi really means when he said to Mini that he is going to his śvaśur-bāṛi. With Rahamat’s imprisonment, all the different connections that hold between the
Mini, narrator, and Rahamat together seem to disappear: Rahamat is no longer remembered, the narrator backs away from her, and Mini leaves her to make friends. During this time, Minnie gets very close to the girls her age and, perhaps, to her mother. This is the first sign that she will be like
her mother as she grows up and begins to learn to be a good wife before her marriage. As Mini is about to leave home, the narrator is deeply troubled emotionally and emotionally, perhaps thinking of their previous intimacy and mourning the fact that their relationship will never be the same again. Kabuliwala’s re-emergence of timely brings back old memories, but, unfortunately, this time, the narrator only sees the negative side, and the image in his mind is of handcuffed Rahamat rather than the Rahamat who listens very eagerly to Mini’s enthusiastic conversation. As with the first appearance of criminal Rahamat, the narrator sees only “trouble”
that can hinder any connection. In this interaction with Rehamat, the narrator seems to have abandoned his previous openness and embraced his wife’s fearful attitude towards the outsiders. He doesn’t want to remember Rahamat’s connection with Mini, and he wants to protect his daughter from the “potential killer” that arises because Rahamat loves Mini. Rahamat, who is in the lower social category and is therefore expected to do as he has been told, shows how much Rahamat still loves Mini when he asks to meet Mini once, despite the fact that someone has already told him to leave the place. For Rahamat, it is not doable to imagine that her friendship with Mini
was over. So far, Rahamat is nothing but Kabuliwala to the narrator. When Rehamat pulls out a piece of paper from his shirt, on which small handprints of his daughter were made, that he always put near to his heart in the memory of his daughter. After seeing this, the narrator with full of tears in his
eyes, and he that he forget “I forgot that Rehmat is a poor Kabuli fruit-seller, but before that, he is also a father.” At the same time, Rehamat reveals that he was not the real criminal; it was a misunderstanding due to which Rehamat spent some of his time in prison. Here, it can be noticed that the two men are connected to each other by their fatherhood and their deep love for their daughters. As a result, Rahamat is no longer seen as a threat but as an equal who deserves to see Mini on her marriage day. Mini’s disappointing response to Rahamat’s attempt to revive their old jokes (regarding the śvaśur-
bāṛi) is because now she knows what the means is depending on the context; it can mean either prison or fathers-in-law. Mini now understands that Rahamat had been in prison, and she too now realizes that this means that she too will go but in a different way. Moreover, Mini has always been a form of standing in Parvati: they are the same age and may have the same personality when Rahamat first met Mini. In her response to Kabuliwala’s appearance, Rahamat foresaw her daughter’s reaction and feared that her contact with Parvati, too, would be hampered by her absence.
Now, at this point, both Rahamat and the narrator are now well aware of what they have lost in relation to their relationship with their daughters and have united them in the end. Kabuliwala’s last contact with Mini helps the narrator to understand that it is really time to release his daughter, and he pays for it by giving Rahamat the money he needs to “re-acquainted himself” with his
daughter Parvati. Although the story ends with a sour note, it also ends with a sense of hope. The narrator has finally forged a real connection with Rahamat, and this shared communication and love for their daughters help to give marriage “a gracious light.
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