The Summary of The Cabuliwallah – Rabindranath Tagore
The father of a five-year-old Mini narrates the well-knitted short
story ‘The Cabuliwallah’. The most innocent and prattling girl Mini and Abdur
Rahman, a street peddler of dry fruits from Kabul are the central characters of
the story.
On one sunny morning, Mini saw a street peddler through the window
of her house and called him “A Cabuliwallah! A Cabuliwallah!” A tall and
gigantic man with a turban on his head and huge sack slung over his shoulder has
answered to her call. As soon as he drew closer to the house to answer Mini’s
call, Mini ran away and hid herself in the folds of her mother’s sari. Mini’s
father bought some dry fruits for her, chatted with him, and came to know that
he was from Kabul and his family was at Kabul. Then he called Mini from her
hiding and introduced her to Abdur Rahma. In order to shed
her fears of Mini, Rahman took some dry fruits from his bag and
bundled them up on other free end of her sari like garment.
Later, Mini’s father found that his daughter Mini and the
Cabuliwallah had struck up in a happy friendly relationship and they met often
almost every day. The Cabuliwallah was a patient listener to Mini’s prattle and
gave her lavish amounts of nuts and raisins. The Cabuliwallah entertained her
with the fascinating stories of his motherland.
However, the suspicious Mini’s mother was always worrying at their
friendship and frightened that he would take away her daughter, Mini and sell
her off as a slave to someone.
As it was going on, one day all of a sudden a disaster struck the
Cabuliwallah. He was arrested and sentenced him to several years of
imprisonment for stabbing one of his customers to death who owed him money.
After his release from the jail, the Cabuliwallah went to Mini’s
house to see her. To his surprise, he found that Mini had grown up, and it was
her wedding day. Mini’s father was not happy to see him on that day and
considered it inauspicious to let him to see Mini. He persuaded him to go away.
Before going away, the Cabuliwallah left a few grapes and raisins wrapped in a
piece of paper for Mini. He then showed Mini’s father an old and shriveled
piece of paper with a black impression of a small tiny hand of his daughter. Filled
with pity for the Cabuliwallah, Mini’s father called his daughter. When the
Cabuliwallah saw Mini in her wedding dress, he was surprised to find a young
woman that he could not recognize. Mini embarrassed when she thought of their
long-forgotten companionship. The Cabuliwallah found extremely difficult to
reconcile with the reality. Seeing the
predicament of the Cabuliwallah, Mini’s father offered him one hundred rupees
enough to return to his native place, Kabul to see his own daughter there. He
gave him the money by cutting down some the expensive wedding celebrations to
meet the expenses of a distressed father. Mini’s father is contended with his
humanistic gesture to help someone who is in distress and helpless and he
wanted see his own daughter after a long time.
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