Kabuliwala - by Rabindranath Tagore

My five years' old daughter Mini cannot live without chattering. I really believe that in
all her life she has not wasted a minute in silence. Her mother is often vexed at this,
and would stop her prattle, but I would not. To see Mini quiet is unnatural, and I
cannot bear it long. And so my own talk with her is always lively.

One morning, for instance, when I was in the midst of the seventeenth chapter of my
new novel, my little Mini stole into the room, and putting her hand into mine, said:
"Father! Ramdayal the doorkeeper calls a crow a krow! He doesn't know anything,
does he?"

Before I could explain to her the differences of language in this world, she was
embarked on the full tide of another subject. "What do you think, Father? Bhola says
there is an elephant in the clouds, blowing water out of his trunk, and that is why it
rains!"

And then, darting off anew, while I sat still making ready some reply to this last
saying, "Father! what relation is Mother to you?"

"My dear little sister in the law!" I murmured involuntarily to myself, but with a grave
face contrived to answer: "Go and play with Bhola, Mini! I am busy!"

The window of my room overlooks the road. The child had seated herself at my feet
near my table, and was playing softly, drumming on her knees. I was hard at work
on my seventeenth chapter, where Protrap Singh, the hero, had just caught
Kanchanlata, the heroine, in his arms, and was about to escape with her by the third
story window of the castle, when all of a sudden Mini left her play, and ran to the
window, crying, "A Kabuliwallah! a Kabuliwallah!" Sure enough in the street below
was a Kabuliwallah, passing slowly along. He wore the loose soiled clothing of his
people, with a tall turban; there was a bag on his back, and he carried boxes of
grapes in his hand.

I cannot tell what were my daughter's feelings at the sight of this man, but she began
to call him loudly. "Ah!" I thought, "he will come in, and my seventeenth chapter will
never be finished!" At which exact moment the Kabuliwallah turned, and looked up
at the child. When she saw this, overcome by terror, she fled to her mother's
protection, and disappeared. She had a blind belief that inside the bag, which the big
man carried, there were perhaps two or three other children like herself. The pedlar
meanwhile entered my doorway, and greeted me with a smiling face.

So precarious was the position of my hero and my heroine, that my first impulse was
to stop and buy something, since the man had been called. I made some small
purchases, and a conversation began about Abdurrahman, the Russians, the English,
and the Frontier Policy.

As he was about to leave, he asked: "And where is the little girl, sir?"

And I, thinking that Mini must get rid of her false fear, had her brought out.

She stood by my chair, and looked at the Kabuliwallah and his bag. He offered her
nuts and raisins, but she would not be tempted, and only clung the closer to me, with
all her doubts increased.

This was their first meeting.

One morning, however, not many days later, as I was leaving the house, I was
startled to find Mini, seated on a bench near the door, laughing and talking, with the
great Kabuliwallah at her feet. In all her life, it appeared; my small daughter had
never found so patient a listener, save her father. And already the corner of her little
sari was stuffed with almonds and raisins, the gift of her visitor, "Why did you give
her those?" I said, and taking out an eight-anna bit, I handed it to him. The man
accepted the money without demur, and slipped it into his pocket.

Alas, on my return an hour later, I found the unfortunate coin had made twice its own
worth of trouble! For the Kabuliwallah had given it to Mini, and her mother catching
sight of the bright round object, had pounced on the child with: "Where did you get
that eight-anna bit? "

"The Kabuliwallah gave it me," said Mini cheerfully.

"The Kabuliwallah gave it you!" cried her mother much shocked. "Oh, Mini! how
could you take it from him?"

I, entering at the moment, saved her from impending disaster, and proceeded to
make my own inquiries.

It was not the first or second time, I found, that the two had met. The Kabuliwallah
had overcome the child's first terror by a judicious bribery of nuts and almonds, and
the two were now great friends.

They had many quaint jokes, which afforded them much amusement. Seated in front
of him, looking down on his gigantic frame in all her tiny dignity, Mini would ripple
her face with laughter, and begin: "O Kabuliwallah, Kabuliwallah, what have you got
in your bag?"

And he would reply, in the nasal accents of the mountaineer: "An elephant!" Not
much cause for merriment, perhaps; but how they both enjoyed the witticism! And
for me, this child's talk with a grown-up man had always in it something strangely
fascinating.

Then the Kabuliwallah, not to be behindhand, would take his turn: "Well, little one,
and when are you going to the father-in-law's house?"

Now most small Bengali maidens have heard long ago about the father-in-law's
house; but we, being a little new-fangled, had kept these things from our child, and
Mini at this question must have been a trifle bewildered. But she would not show it,
and with ready tact replied: "Are you going there?"

Amongst men of the Kabuliwallah's class, however, it is well known that the words
father-in-law's house have a double meaning. It is a euphemism for jail, the place
where we are well cared for, at no expense to ourselves. In this sense would the
sturdy pedlar take my daughter's question. "Ah," he would say, shaking his fist at an
invisible policeman, "I will thrash my father-in-law!" Hearing this, and picturing the
poor discomfited relative, Mini would go off into peals of laughter, in which her
formidable friend would join.

These were autumn mornings, the very time of year when kings of old went forth to
conquest; and I, never stirring from my little corner in Calcutta, would let my mind
wander over the whole world. At the very name of another country, my heart would
go out to it, and at the sight of a foreigner in the streets, I would fall to weaving a
network of dreams, --the mountains, the glens, and the forests of his distant home,
with his cottage in its setting, and the free and independent life of far-away wilds.

Perhaps the scenes of travel conjure
themselves up before me, and pass and repass in my imagination all the more vividly,
because I lead such a vegetable existence, that a call to travel would fall upon me
like a thunderbolt.

In the presence of this Kabuliwallah, I was immediately transported to the foot of
arid mountain peaks, with narrow little defiles twisting in and out amongst their
towering heights. I could see the string of camels bearing the merchandise, and the
company of turbaned merchants, carrying some of their queer old firearms, and
some of their spears, journeying downward towards the plains. I could see--but at
some such point Mini's mother would intervene, imploring me to "beware of that
man."

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, or malaria or
cockroaches, or caterpillars, or an English sailor. Even after all these years of
experience, she is not able to overcome her terror. So she was full of doubts about
the Kabuliwallah, and used to beg me to keep a watchful eye on him.

I tried to laugh her fear gently away, but then she would turn round on me seriously,
and ask me solemn questions.

Were children never kidnapped?

Was it, then, not true that there was slavery in Kabul?

Was it so very absurd that this big man should be able to carry off a tiny child?

I urged that, though not impossible, it was highly improbable. But this was not
enough, and her dread persisted. As it was indefinite, however, it did not seem right
to forbid the man the house, and the intimacy went on unchecked.

Once a year in the middle of January Rahmun, the Kabuliwallah, was in the habit of
returning to his country, and as the time approached he would be very busy, going
from house to house collecting his debts. This year, however, he could always find
time to come and see Mini. It would have seemed to an outsider that there was some
conspiracy between the two, for when he could not come in the morning, he would
appear in the evening.

Even to me it was a little startling now and then, in the corner of a dark room,
suddenly to surprise this tall, loose-garmented, much bebagged man; but when Mini
would run in smiling, with her, "O! Kabuliwallah! Kabuliwallah!" and the two friends,
so far apart in age, would subside into their old laughter and their old jokes, I felt
reassured.

One morning, a few days before he had made up his mind to go, I was correcting my
proof sheets in my study. It was chilly weather. Through the window the rays of the
sun touched my feet, and the slight warmth was very welcome. It was almost eight
o'clock, and the early pedestrians were returning home, with their heads covered. All
at once, I heard an uproar in the street, and, looking out, saw Rahmun being led
away bound between two policemen, and behind them a crowd of curious boys.
There were blood-stains on the clothes of the Kabuliwallah, and one of the
policemen carried a knife.

Hurrying out, I stopped them, and enquired what it all meant. Partly from one, partly
from another, I gathered that a certain neighbour had owed the pedlar something for
a Rampuri shawl, but had falsely denied having bought it, and that in the course of
the quarrel, Rahmun had struck him. Now in the heat of his excitement, the prisoner
began calling his enemy all sorts of names, when suddenly in a verandah of my house
appeared my little Mini, with her usual exclamation: "O Kabuliwallah! Kabuliwallah!"
Rahmun's face lighted up as he turned to her. He had no bag under his arm today, so
she could not discuss the elephant with him. She at once therefore proceeded to the
next question: "Are you going to the father-in-law's house?" Rahmun laughed and
said: "Just where I am going, little one!" Then seeing that the reply did not amuse the
child, he held up his fettered hands. " Ali," he said, " I would have thrashed that old
father-in-law, but my hands are bound!"

On a charge of murderous assault, Rahmun was sentenced to some years'
imprisonment.

Time passed away, and he was not remembered. The accustomed work in the
accustomed place was ours, and the thought of the once-free mountaineer spending
his years in prison seldom or never occurred to us. Even my light-hearted Mini, I am
ashamed to say, forgot her old friend. New companions filled her life. As she grew
older, she spent more of her time with girls. So much time indeed did she spend with
them that she came no more, as she used to do, to her father's room. I was scarcely
on speaking terms with her.

Years had passed away. It was once more autumn and we had made arrangements
for our Mini's marriage. It was to take place during the Puja Holidays. With Durga
returning to Kailas, the light of our home also was to depart to her husband's house,
and leave her father's in the shadow.

The morning was bright. After the rains, there was a sense of ablution in the air, and
the sun-rays looked like pure gold. So bright were they that they gave a beautiful
radiance even to the sordid brick walls of our Calcutta lanes. Since early dawn
to-day the wedding-pipes had been sounding, and at each beat my own heart
throbbed. The wail of the tune, Bhairavi, seemed to intensify my pain at the
approaching separation. My Mini was to be married to-night.

From early morning noise and bustle had pervaded the house. In the courtyard the
canopy had to be slung on its bamboo poles; the chandeliers with their tinkling sound
must be hung in each room and verandah. There was no end of hurry and
excitement. I was sitting in my study, looking through the accounts, when some one
entered, saluting respectfully, and stood before me. It was Rahmun the Kabuliwallah.
At first I did not recognise him. He had no bag, nor the long hair, nor the same
vigour that he used to have. But he smiled, and I knew him again.

"When did you come, Rahmun?" I asked him.

"Last evening," he said, "I was released from jail."

The words struck harsh upon my ears. I had never before talked with one who had
wounded his fellow, and my heart shrank within itself, when I realised this, for I felt
that the day would have been better-omened had he not turned up.

"There are ceremonies going on," I said, "and I am busy. Could you perhaps come
another day?"

At once he turned to go; but as he reached the door he hesitated, and said: "May I
not see the little one, sir, for a moment?" It was his belief that Mini was still the same.
He had pictured her running to him as she used, calling "O Kabuliwallah!
Kabuliwallah!" He had imagined too that they would laugh and talk together, just as
of old. In fact, in memory of former days he had brought, carefully wrapped up in
paper, a few almonds and raisins and grapes, obtained somehow from a
countryman, for his own little fund was dispersed.

I said again: "There is a ceremony in the house, and you will not be able to see any
one to-day."

The man's face fell. He looked wistfully at me for a moment, said "Good morning,"
and went out. I felt a little sorry, and would have called him back, but I found he was
returning of his own accord. He came close up to me holding out his offerings and
said: "I brought these few things, sir, for the little one. Will you give them to her?"

I took them and was going to pay him, but he caught my hand and said: "You are
very kind, sir! Keep me in your recollection. Do not offer me money!--You have a
little girl, I too have one like her in my own home. I think of her, and bring fruits to
your child, not to make a profit for myself."

Saying this, he put his hand inside his big loose robe, and brought out a small and
dirty piece of paper. With great care he unfolded this, and smoothed it out with both
hands on my table. It bore the impression of a little band. Not a photograph. Not a
drawing. The impression of an ink-smeared hand laid flat on the paper. This touch of
his own little daughter had been always on his heart, as he had come year after year
to Calcutta, to sell his wares in the streets.

Tears came to my eyes. I forgot that he was a poor Kabuli fruit-seller, while I
was--but no, what was I more than he? He also was a father. That impression of the
hand of his little Parbati in her distant mountain home reminded me of my own little
Mini.

I sent for Mini immediately from the inner apartment. Many difficulties were raised,
but I would not listen. Clad in the red silk of her wedding-day, with the sandal paste
on her forehead, and adorned as a young bride, Mini came, and stood bashfully
before me.

The Kabuliwallah looked a little staggered at the apparition. He could not revive their
old friendship. At last he smiled and said: "Little one, are you going to your
father-in-law's house?"

But Mini now understood the meaning of the word "father-in-law," and she could not
reply to him as of old. She flushed up at the question, and stood before him with her
bride-like face turned down.

I remembered the day when the Kabuliwallah and my Mini had first met, and I felt
sad. When she had gone, Rahmun heaved a deep sigh, and sat down on the floor.
The idea had suddenly come to him that his daughter too must have grown in this
long time, and that he would have to make friends with her anew. Assuredly he
would not find her, as he used to know her. And besides, what might not have
happened to her in these eight years?

The marriage-pipes sounded, and the mild autumn sun streamed round us. But
Rahmun sat in the little Calcutta lane, and saw before him the barren mountains of
Afghanistan.

I took out a bank-note, and gave it to him, saying: "Go back to your own daughter,
Rahmun, in your own country, and may the happiness of your meeting bring good
fortune to my child!"

Having made this present, I had to curtail some of the festivities. I could not have the
electric lights I had intended, nor the military band, and the ladies of the house were
despondent at it. But to me the wedding feast was all the brighter for the thought that
in a distant land a long-lost father met again with his only child.