The first impression of Kabuliwala comes from the shadow of most of the children born in Bengal. From an influential age, children are made to believe that these merchants from Kabul used to smuggle young children and that they had wild animals such as elephants and lions in their ‘bags’ and, therefore, should beware of them. The fear of Kabuliwala is deeply rooted in the minds of the people of Kolkata, which defined their children’s first whispers and brushes with the image of Kabuliwala.
usually dressed without sport in a long, overflowing Pathan suit, a poorly fitting turban and Mehndi Dyed hair and beard, the Kabuliwalas are primarily traders, moneylenders and sellers of foreign dry fruits and attar (perfume) from Afghanistan, who have been living in Kolkata for decades. His slow, reluctant inertia to walk and his far-reaching cries to sell his wares reverberate in every street of the city.
At a time when Afghanistan is torn by war, conflict, displacement and terror, the figure of Kabuliwala emerges not from the hardcovers of books, but from between the pages, as Rabindranath Tagore recalled in his short story. Kabuliwala.
In the story, Kabuliwala Rahmat roams around the hinterland of the city to sell his goods. Mini, the five-year-old heroine of the story, calls out to the merchant from her window, “Kabuliwala! O Kabuliwala!,” and then runs away.
Five-year-old Mini reminds Rahmat of her young daughter back home in Kabul, the faint impression of which he carries in his pocket.
As the story progresses, an unexpected bond develops between the kind-hearted Afghan and the young Mini. Tagore used his short story to widely dissect the xenophobia associated with Afghan merchants. However, in the story, Kabuliwala is wronged, abused, and sentenced to prison, transforming the Afghan figure into a classic tragic hero.
In addition, Tapan Sinha’s adaptation of the 1957 short story brought Tagore’s master story to celluloid and touched the audience in an intermittent manner. The black-and-white film starring Chhabi Biswas as Kabuliwala and Tinku Tagore as five-year-old Mini is deep in its simplicity. The film takes us impersonally into the life of Rahmat, who is also the father of a girl like Mini, thereby humanizing the figure of the much-loved Kabuliwala.
In Hemen Gupta Kabuliwala (1961), the role of an honest Afghan diaspora was played by Balraj Sahni. 2017 film in recent times bioscope Tells the story of Tagore Kabuliwala, but in a very different light. Danny Denzongpa plays the character of a businessman from Kabul.
Recently, the Kabuliwalas of Kolkata have started opening tailoring shops and other enterprises. they are often victims biryani And Mughlai City additions. With the passage of time, the Kabuliwalas have become seamlessly integrated into the Indian society. The prejudice and fear associated with these traders is also gone.
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