Kabuliwallah

(This is only a poor translation of "Kabuliwallah" by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore; the objective is merely to exhort readers to read the original story or better translations.

My five-year-old daughter, Mini, cannot remain quiet even for a minute. It had taken her only a year after coming to this world to learn the language and, thereafter, she has never wasted a single moment of her waking hours in remaining silent. Her mother often scolds her and forces Mini to keep her mouth shut, but I do not have the heart to do that. Mini appears so unnatural if she keeps quiet that I find it unendurable. It is for this reason that Mini's conversation with me is always lively.

I was trying to complete the 17th chapter of my new novel in the morning when Mini came to me."Baba, our watchman Ramdayal calls a crow a kouaa. He does not know anything. No?"

Before I could acquaint her of the diversities of the language, Mini had broached a different subject. "See Baba, Bhola was saying that elephants spout water in the sky with their trunks and, so, we get rains. Bhola is such a liar. He only talks, talks through the day and night."

Without waiting to hear my opinion on the matter, she asked me abruptly, "Baba, how is Ma related to you?"

"Sister-in-law," I said to myself, but to her I said, "Mini, go out and play with Bhola now. I have work to do."

She sat down at my feet by my writing table and began to play some sort of a game. In the 17th chapter of my book, Pratapsingh and Kanchanmala had, in the darkness of the night, leaped off the high prison wall into the river in a bid to escape.

My house is by the road. Mini stopped her game all of a sudden and rushed to the window screaming, "Kabuliwallah, oh Kabuliwallah."

A tall Kabuliwallah was walking down the road. He was attired in dirty loose flowing clothes with a turban on his head; there was a bundle slung across his shoulders, and he carried few boxes of grapes in his hands. I cannot say what emotions my daughter experienced at the sight of him but she began calling him fervently. I thought to myself, now the man will come here and I shall not be able to finish writing the 17th chapter of my book.

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