Kabuliwala

by

Rabindranath Tagore

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Connection Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Connection Theme Icon
Fatherly Love Theme Icon
Curiosity and Growing Up Theme Icon
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Perhaps the most powerful element of Kabuliwallah is the way Tagore portrays the human connection as it transcends social class, time, age, and culture. In the beginning of the story, the unnamed narrator describes the close relationship he has with his five-year-old little daughter named Mini. Mini is friendly and quickly makes friends with an Afghan Kabuliwallah (a peddler) named Rahamat. When Rahamat is sent to jail for stabbing a customer who refused to pay their debt, however, both Mini and the narrator forget about him and move on with their lives. Eight years later, Rahamat is released from jail and discovers that Mini has grown up and has forgotten him, which forces him to face the fact that his own daughter, Parvati, back in Afghanistan will have forgotten him, too. In Kabuliwallah, Tagore argues that real, meaningful connections can only be made when people recognize the common humanity in one another regardless of their differences.

Rahamat and the narrator could not be more different at first glance, and this initially prevents the narrator from believing he could have anything in common with Rahamat. In the opening scene of the story, the narrator is working on his novel, but it is unclear if this is his only form of work or even if he is successful at it. However, it becomes evident that the narrator is financially well-off because they can afford a gatekeeper and because Rahamat uses the respectful term Babu when talking to him. Rahamat, on the other hand, is dressed in dirty baggy clothes and, at best, speaks a hybrid sort of Bengali. Furthermore, Rahamat is forced to trek far away from his home and family in order to make a living, indicating that opportunities back home are limited and that he ahs not been able to earn enough abroad to be able to stay with his family permanently. While the narrators daughter, Mini, quickly develops a meaningful connection with Rahamat, the narrator has difficulty seeing him as anything but an inferior. This is shown by the narrators insistence on giving Rahamat money for the nuts he gave Mini as a gift—the narrator is unable to recognize that the two of them have developed a real connection despite differences in age, ethnicity, and social class.

The connection that the narrator and Rahamat eventually develop begins with their mutual connection with Mini, who brings them both a kind of happiness their present situations would typically prevent them from experiencing. The narrator says that Mini cant stop talking for a minute, and while his wife loses patience with this and scolds her, he simply cant do that. Unlike Minis mother, the narrator enjoys answering Minis questions and teaching her more about the world that he himself longs to explore. Rahamat, on the other hand, spends a large portion of his time away from his wife and young daughter, limiting his ability to be an active and present father. Mini, however, fills this void and gives Rahamat the kind of happiness denied him by the distance between himself and his daughter. To the narrator, Rahamat is little more than his daughters play-fellow. He says seeing them together gave him pleasure, but this evidently has more to do with the image they present to his mind (a young child and a grown man laughing so heartily) than with any personal liking for Rahamat himself.

Because the narrator initially sees Rahamat as an inferior, it is easy for him to forget about Rahamat after his arrest. Rahamat doesnt truly become human to the narrator until many years later when he learns of the common ground they share: that they both have daughters that they love dearly. Mini is going to darken her parents house by leaving it to get married, which makes the narrator sentimental as he thinks about their former close connection. When Rahamat suddenly appears at the narrators house, the narrator initially only sees him as a would-be murderer and treats him coldly when he asks to see Mini. Once again, the narrator assigns mercenary motives to Rahamats interest in Mini, shown by the narrators attempt to give him money to leave. This changes when Rahamat shows the narrator his only memento of his daughter—a handprint on a piece of paper that he keeps tucked inside the breast pocket of his shirt. Only then does the narrator forget their differences and recognize all that they, as fathers, have in common, saying, I understood then that he was as I am and is able to connect to him on a human level. Although class pride and bias initially prevent the narrator from treating Rahamat with respect and equality, their common ground as fathers of well-loved daughters ultimately suggests that theyre not so different after all, allowing them to truly connect to one another on a human level.

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Connection Quotes in Kabuliwala

Below you will find the important quotes in Kabuliwala related to the theme of Connection.
Kabuliwala Quotes

My five-year-old daughter Mini can’t stop talking for a minute. […] Her mother often scolds her and makes her shut up, but I can’t do that. When Mini is quiet, it is so unnatural that I cannot bear it. So she’s rather keen on chatting to me.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Mini, The Narrator’s Wife / Mini’s Mother
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

[…] 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 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: