Kabuliwala

by

Rabindranath Tagore

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Kabuliwala makes teaching easy.

Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala” Character Analysis

Rahamat is a traveling fruit seller from Afghanistan, or a Kabuliwala, and is often referred to as such. He is first seen wearing dirty baggy clothes, which indicates that he is from a lower class. As he is not from Calcutta and speaks broken Bengali, Rahamat is something of an ostracized figure in town, and the narrator treats him with suspicion until the man makes friends with the narrator’s five-year-old daughter, Mini. Rahamat bribes Mini with pistachios to talk to him at first, but eventually they develop a real friendship. He visits the narrators house every day and brings Mini more nuts, fruits, and raisins, and listens to her excitable chatter for as long as he can before he has to return to work. Occasionally, he also talks with the narrator about Afghanistan and what life is like there. One day while he is collecting debts from customers in the neighborhood before returning to his home, Rahamat gets into a fight with someone who wont pay him and stabs the customer. Rahamat is promptly arrested and led away by the police, but he has the chance to explain to the narrator what happened and where he is going. Eight years later, Rahamat is released from jail and goes straight to the narrators home to see Mini again, but is shocked to see that she has grown up. It is Mini’s wedding day, and when she comes into the room to see Rahamat, she is wearing her wedding clothes. Rahamat tries to rekindle their former friendship by telling her an old joke they used to have about her going to her father-in-law’s home, but instead of laughing, Mini becomes shy and blushes before silently leaving the room. This reminds Rahamat that his own daughter, Parvati (who still lives in Afghanistan), will have grown up and become a different person. The story ends with the narrator giving Rahamat the money he will need to get home and be reunited with his family, the men having bonded over the love they both have for their daughters.

Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala” Quotes in Kabuliwala

The Kabuliwala quotes below are all either spoken by Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala” or refer to Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Connection Theme Icon
).
Kabuliwala Quotes

[…] I saw my daughter sitting on a bench in front of the door, nattering unrestrainedly; and the Kabuliwala was sitting at her feet, listening—grinning broadly, and from time to time making comments in his hybrid sort of Bengali. In all her five years of life, Mini had never found so patient a listener, apart from her father.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:

Rahamat would say to Mini, “Little one, don’t ever go off to your śvaśur-bāṛi.’ […] She […] couldn’t clearly understand what Rahamat meant; yet to remain silent and give no reply was wholly against her nature, so she would turn the idea round and say, ‘Are you going to your śvaśur-bāṛi?’ Shaking his huge fist at an imaginary father-in-law Rahamat said, “I’ll settle him!”

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala” (speaker), Mini (speaker)
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:

Mini came straight out with her ‘Are you going to your śvaśur-bāṛi?”

‘Yes, I’m going there now,’ said Rahamat with a smile. But when he saw that his reply had failed to amuse Mini, he brandished his handcuffed fists and said, “I would have killed my śvaśur, but how can I with these on?’

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala” (speaker), Mini (speaker)
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:

Living at home, carrying on day by day with our routine tasks, we gave no thought to how a free-spirited mountain-dweller was passing his years behind prison-walls. […] [Mini] even stopped coming to her father’s study. And I, in a sense, dropped her.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:

I had never confronted a would-be murderer before; I shrank back at the sight of him. I began to feel that on this auspicious morning it would be better to have the man out of the way.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:

Every year Rahamat carried this memento of his daughter in his breast-pocket when he came to sell raisins in Calcutta’s streets: as if the touch of that soft, small, childish hand brought solace to his huge, homesick breast. My eyes swam at the sight of it. I forgot then that he was an Afghan raisin-seller and I was a Bengali Babu. I understood then that he was as I am, that he was a father just as I am a father. The handprint of his little mountain-dwelling Parvati reminded me of my own Mini.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini, Parvati
Related Symbols: Parvati’s Handprint
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

Mini now knew the meaning of śvaśur-bāṛi; she couldn’t reply as before—she blushed at Rahamat’s question and looked away. I recalled the day when Mini and the Kabuliwala had first met. My heart ached.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

Mini left the room, and Rahamat, sighing deeply, sat down on the floor. He suddenly understood clearly that his own daughter would have grown up too since he last saw her, and with her too he would have to become re-acquainted: he would not find her exactly as she was before. Who knew what had happened to her these eight years?

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini, Parvati
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Kabuliwala LitChart as a printable PDF.
Kabuliwala PDF

Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala” Quotes in Kabuliwala

The Kabuliwala quotes below are all either spoken by Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala” or refer to Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Connection Theme Icon
).
Kabuliwala Quotes

[…] I saw my daughter sitting on a bench in front of the door, nattering unrestrainedly; and the Kabuliwala was sitting at her feet, listening—grinning broadly, and from time to time making comments in his hybrid sort of Bengali. In all her five years of life, Mini had never found so patient a listener, apart from her father.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:

Rahamat would say to Mini, “Little one, don’t ever go off to your śvaśur-bāṛi.’ […] She […] couldn’t clearly understand what Rahamat meant; yet to remain silent and give no reply was wholly against her nature, so she would turn the idea round and say, ‘Are you going to your śvaśur-bāṛi?’ Shaking his huge fist at an imaginary father-in-law Rahamat said, “I’ll settle him!”

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala” (speaker), Mini (speaker)
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:

Mini came straight out with her ‘Are you going to your śvaśur-bāṛi?”

‘Yes, I’m going there now,’ said Rahamat with a smile. But when he saw that his reply had failed to amuse Mini, he brandished his handcuffed fists and said, “I would have killed my śvaśur, but how can I with these on?’

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala” (speaker), Mini (speaker)
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:

Living at home, carrying on day by day with our routine tasks, we gave no thought to how a free-spirited mountain-dweller was passing his years behind prison-walls. […] [Mini] even stopped coming to her father’s study. And I, in a sense, dropped her.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:

I had never confronted a would-be murderer before; I shrank back at the sight of him. I began to feel that on this auspicious morning it would be better to have the man out of the way.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:

Every year Rahamat carried this memento of his daughter in his breast-pocket when he came to sell raisins in Calcutta’s streets: as if the touch of that soft, small, childish hand brought solace to his huge, homesick breast. My eyes swam at the sight of it. I forgot then that he was an Afghan raisin-seller and I was a Bengali Babu. I understood then that he was as I am, that he was a father just as I am a father. The handprint of his little mountain-dwelling Parvati reminded me of my own Mini.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini, Parvati
Related Symbols: Parvati’s Handprint
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

Mini now knew the meaning of śvaśur-bāṛi; she couldn’t reply as before—she blushed at Rahamat’s question and looked away. I recalled the day when Mini and the Kabuliwala had first met. My heart ached.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

Mini left the room, and Rahamat, sighing deeply, sat down on the floor. He suddenly understood clearly that his own daughter would have grown up too since he last saw her, and with her too he would have to become re-acquainted: he would not find her exactly as she was before. Who knew what had happened to her these eight years?

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Rahamat / The “Kabuliwala”, Mini, Parvati
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis: