Kabuliwala

by

Rabindranath Tagore

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Curiosity and Growing Up Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Connection Theme Icon
Fatherly Love Theme Icon
Curiosity and Growing Up Theme Icon
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Curiosity and Growing Up Theme Icon

One of the characteristics that the narrator and Mini share is their curiosity about the world. They both have a thirst for knowledge and an openness to new experiences, but in their little Calcutta neighborhood, they are stuck in a domestic routine with few opportunities to explore something new. This changes when Mini spots Rahamat, a Kabuliwallah selling fruit in the neighborhood, and calls out to him. The unlikely pair become fast friends. As the narrator states, Mini had never found so patient a listener (except for the narrator himself), and Rahamat satisfies her desire to ask questions and learn their answers. For the narrator, who dreams of adventure, Rahamat offers the opportunity to learn about different worlds from someone with firsthand experience. However, not everyone in the narrators home shares their friendly feelings towards Rahamat. Minis mother has no curiosity and is terrified of the dangers that exist outside of her home. Rahamats arrest after stabbing a customer who refused to pay seems to validate Minis mothers fears, and over time Mini grows apart from her father and gradually loses her innocent curiosity about the world and other people. To Tagore, few things are more tragic than a childs loss of curiosity and innocence as they grow up.

The narrator and Mini are very close and spend a lot of time together during her early childhood, bound by the mutual pleasure they take in Minis curiosity and the narrators ability to satisfy it. Minis mother has little patience for Minis chatter and prefers to make her shut up when she asks questions rather than answer them, but the narrator thinks its unnatural when Mini isnt being inquisitive, suggesting that such unbridled curiosity is simply a part of being a child. The narrators positive and patient attitude towards Minis curiosity—which Tagore seems to imply is the right way to respond to a child’s endless supply of questions—is due to his own curiosity about the world. The narrator has never left his hometown, but his mind roves all over the world and he expresses his desire for adventure by devoting writing adventure novels. When Rahamat enters the scene, he indulges both the narrator and Mini by answering their questions and listening to them, becoming a symbol of their shared curiosity and desire to explore the world around them. Their mutual friendship with Rahamat is the one real adventure they have together, but when Rahamat goes to jail, he seems to take their shared curiosity about the world with him.

With Rahamat no longer in their lives, the narrator and Mini grow apart from one another, and their curiosity about the world begins to unravel. Mini stops coming to his father’s study to chat, and he in a sense, drop[s] her. As she grows apart from her father, Mini grows closer to her mother, who has a very different outlook on the world. Minis mother is easily alarmed and believes the world is overrun with thieves that might hurt her or Mini. As Mini grows closer to her mother, its natural that she would start adopting her worldview, especially as her mother prepares her for her future domestic role of wife and mother. This is in part because, as a wife in a society that upholds traditional gender norms (despite having “progressive” parents) Minis place will likely be in the home, and too much curiosity and hunger for adventure could be considered bad qualities in a wife or a distraction from her eventual duties as a mother.

Furthermore, the narrator also seems to lose his own openness to experiences and people, shown by his new distrust for Rahamat after his release from jail even though the narrator knows he is a kind person. When Rahamat suddenly appears in the narrators study eight years after his arrest, the narrator has little interest in reigniting a friendship with him because he is a would-be murderer, which seems to somewhat justify Minis mothers fears about him. However, Rahamat reveals that he also has a daughter, and that they are both united by their fatherly love for their daughters. With tears in his eyes, the narrator imagines Rahamat’s “little mountain-dwelling Parvati,” and it makes him nostalgic about his own daughter, who is not so little anymore.

The narrator calls Mini into the room to say hello to her old friend, but she, too, has lost her openness to the strange and unfamiliar that Rahamat represents. Instead of boisterously entering the room like she did as a child, Mini comes in timidly and [stands] close by the narrator instead of going forward to her old friend. As Rahamat attempts to interact with her in the friendly way they used to, Mini stands silently and blushes, obviously uncomfortable. She then leaves the room without a word. Seeing this evidence of Minis loss of openness, the narrator’s heart ache[s], and he mourns the curious and friendly little girl that his daughter once was. Rahamat is also saddened by this interaction, as it is an indication of the changes that likely have occurred in his own daughter in the eight years he’s been gone. With heavy hearts, both fathers realize that with age comes a loss of innocent curiosity and a certain zest for life—a perhaps normal but nonetheless tragic part of growing up.

Despite the heaviness of this scene, the story ends on an optimistic note with the narrator giving Rahamat enough money to go back home and become re-acquainted with his daughter. However, the fact remains that their two daughters are no longer children and are now entering womanhood. The tragedy of this story is not so much Rahamats loss of time with his daughter or Mini darken[ing] her parents’ house by leaving it, but the poignant loss of innocence, curiosity, and openness happens as children grow up.

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Curiosity and Growing Up ThemeTracker

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Curiosity and Growing Up Quotes in Kabuliwala

Below you will find the important quotes in Kabuliwala related to the theme of Curiosity and Growing Up.
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 have never been away from Calcutta; precisely because of that, my mind roves all over the world. I seem to be condemned to my house, but I constantly yearn for the world outside. […] At the same time, I am such a rooted sort of individual that whenever I have to leave my familiar spot I practically collapse.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis:

Mini’s mother is very easily alarmed. The slightest noise in the street makes her think that all the world’s drunkards are charging straight at our house. […] She was not too happy about Rahamat the Kabuliwala.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Narrator’s Wife / Mini’s Mother
Page Number: 116
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:

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: