GUEST BLOG/ Fiction by Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. He was the first non-European laureate, recognized for his profoundly sensitive, fresh, and beautiful verse, particularly his work Gitanjali (Song Offerings).
My five-year-old daughter Mini cannot keep quiet for a minute. She has the gift of eternal and incessant conversation. I believe this is the natural gift of childhood itself, for children seldom tire of speaking. Whenever I come home from my morning’s work and sit down, she runs up to me at once and begins: “Father! Ramdayal the gate-keeper calls a crow a krow! He doesn’t know anything, does he?”
She does not pause for an answer. “Father! Bhola says there’s an elephant in the clouds, blowing water out of its trunk. Do clouds have elephants?”
Then, without waiting: “Father! What’s mother to you?”
One day I was writing something at my desk. The morning was winter-clear, the sun streaming golden. Mini was seated by my feet, chirping her endless little questions.
At that very moment a Kabuliwala passed by the road.
He was a tall, turbaned fellow, loose garments, a bag slung on his back, and some grapes in his hand. He called out, “Kabuliwala! Kabuliwala!” and Mini, seeing him, shrieked and ran inside. She had never seen such a man before.
But a few days later, by a strange fate, she and the Kabuliwala became friends. He would bring her nuts and raisins; though I objected at first, soon I found her pockets stuffed with almonds. They would sit together in the courtyard, the big man and the tiny chatterbox, and exchange their odd confidences. The Kabuliwala would laugh and ask, “Mini, are you going to your father-in-law’s house?”
This was the stock joke between them, for in Bengal little girls are teased about marriage from an early age. Mini would respond, “Are you going to your father-in-law’s house?” and laugh loudly. I liked this giant Pathan’s affection for my child.
But one day he was arrested. He had stabbed a customer who tried to cheat him, and was sent to prison for many years. Mini soon forgot him in her child’s world of play.
Years passed.
Mini grew into a young woman, her marriage day was fixed. It was the morning of the wedding when the Kabuliwala returned, released after his sentence. He came straight to my house, carrying his old bag.
I was busy with the wedding arrangements.
He asked to see Mini. At first I hesitated, unwilling to disturb the bridal seclusion.
But I relented and called her.
Mini entered, her wedding garments rustling.
The Kabuliwala stared at her, bewildered, as if she were a stranger. Where was the little girl with whom he had laughed?
He sighed deeply, and tears gathered in his eyes.
He told me quietly that he too had left a little daughter in his own far-off Kabul.
Every year, when he sold his wares in Calcutta, he remembered her.
Seeing Mini again had broken open that wound of separation. I realized then that beneath the robes of this foreigner beat the heart of a father.
My own eyes filled with tears.
Out of the money set aside for the wedding, I gave him a small amount, saying: “Go back to your daughter, Kabuliwala.”
He pressed the coins to his forehead in gratitude, and left.
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