Kabuliwala Summary & Analysis

The narrator’s precocious five-year-old daughter, Mini, started talking very young, and now she “can’t stop talking for a minute.” While her mother loses patience with Mini’s chatter and “often scolds her,” the narrator can’t bring himself to tell her to be quiet because it is “so unnatural” when she’s not talking. Because of this, Mini turns to her father when she wants to talk.

One morning while the narrator is working on the 17th chapter of his book, Mini approaches him and tells him that the gatekeeper doesn’t know the proper word for a crow—he calls it “a kauyā instead of a kāk”—but the narrator realizes that she has actually misunderstood because the gatekeeper speaks a different language. However, before the narrator can explain this to her, Mini tells him that Bhola told her “an elephant in the sky squirts water through its trunk” to make it rain. Again, the narrator cannot answer her because she abruptly asks “what relation” her mother is to him. The narrator is unsure how to answer and so he tells her to go play, but she sits on the floor next to him and plays.

The narrator continues working on his book—an adventure story in which the main characters are escaping from a prison—but Mini suddenly catches sight of a Kabuliwala outside. He is dressed in "dirty baggy clothes” and carrying boxes of grapes. The narrator thinks that the Kabuliwala “spells trouble” and laments that he won’t get to finish the chapter he was working on.

Hearing Mini yelling about him, the Kabuliwala comes up to the house, but Mini suddenly becomes afraid that the Kabuliwala actually carries children in his bags, so she runs away to another part of the house. Not wanting to be rude, the narrator invites the Kabuliwala in and buys something from him while they talk about Afghani politics and the present conflict between the British and the Russians in Afghanistan. Although the Kabuliwala asks about Mini and the narrator calls her into the room “To dispel her groundless fears,” she refuses to go up to him and instead eyes the Kabuliwala “suspiciously.”

A few days after the Kabuliwala’s first appearance, the narrator walks out of the house and sees Mini sitting and talking with the Kabuliwala, who is seemingly very happy to listen to her and tries to make himself understood in his “hybrid sort of Bengali.” The narrator notes that besides himself, Mini has “never found so patient a listener.” The narrator also notices that Mini is holding a pile of nuts and raisins, so he tells the Kabuliwala not to give her anymore and gives him half a rupee for what he has already given her before leaving.

Later, when the narrator gets back home, his wife is in the middle of scolding Mini for somehow getting her hands on a half rupee. Mini explains that the Kabuliwala gave it to her, and the girl’s mother is upset with her for accepting it. The narrator “rescue[s] Mini from her mother’s wrath” and brings her outside to talk. He learns that the Kabuliwala has been coming to the house almost every day, having won Mini’s regard with presents of pistachios. They have become so close that they have inside jokes and the narrator comes to enjoy seeing them laugh together.

One of the jokes between Mini and the Kabuliwala—whose name is Rahamat—involves her eventually having to leave to go to her śvaśur-bāṛi. The narrator notes that while most Bengali girls Mini’s age would know what this means, Mini does not because her parents are “progressive people” and thus have not talked much about her future marriage. In her ignorance, Mini always responds to Rahamat by asking him if he is going to his, and he always shakes a fist at “an imaginary father-in-law” and makes a joke. Mini laughs at this, “imagin[ing] the fate of this unknown creature called a śvaśur.”

The narrator notes that it is “perfect autumn weather,” which makes him think about the “ancient times” when kings would “set out on their world-conquests.” Unlike these kings, the narrator has never left his hometown of Calcutta. Because of this, his “mind roves all over the world” even while he is physically “condemned” to his house, and he loves imagining faraway places and “the free and pleasant life” he could have there. The Kabuliwala, who has traveled far more than the narrator, offers him an opportunity to hear stories about “High, scorched, blood-coloured, forbidding mountains” where “laden camels” and “turbaned merchants and wayfarers” can be seen traveling from one place to the next, which the narrator claims is “quite enough wandering for me.

The narrator’s wife is very different from the narrator: she is “very easily alarmed” and is convinced that the world outside their home is dangerous and full of villains, life-threatening diseases, menacing animals, and even more menacing “white-skinned marauders.” Because of this, she repeatedly warns the narrator to keep an eye on the Kabuliwala. When the narrator tries to convince her that the Kabuliwala is safe, she launches on a tirade about the dangers of kidnapping and children being sold into slavery in Afghanistan. The narrator admits that his wife’s fears aren’t entirely unfounded, but he sees no problem in continuing to let the Kabuliwala come to the house to talk to Mini.

The time eventually comes for the Kabuliwala to collect his debts and return to his home. He is busy all day during this time, but never fails to come to the narrator’s house to see Mini. Even though the sight of Rahamat in his baggy clothes in “a little frightening” to the narrator, he is always overjoyed to see how warmly Mini greets the Kabuliwala.

One morning during this time, the narrator is up early and working in his study. He is enjoying the pleasant morning sun when he hears “a sudden commotion in the street.” From his study, the narrator sees “our Rahamat” being taken away in handcuffs, covered in blood. One of the policemen bringing him away is holding a bloody knife.

The narrator goes outside to ask what happened and, between what the Kabuliwala and the policemen tell him, he gathers that a neighbor who owed Rahamat money refused to pay and so they got in a fight, during which he stabbed the neighbor. As he tells this story, Mini appears outside and goes up to the Kabuliwala just as usual. Mini asks him if he is going to his śvaśur-bāṛi, and he grins and says he is. However, in deviating from their usual script of inside jokes, the Kabuliwala fails to make Mini laugh. Gesturing to his handcuffs, he adds, “I would have killed my śvaśur, but how can I with these on?”

The Kabuliwala is sentenced to prison for many years, and the narrator and Mini soon forget him. As she grows up, Mini’s behavior, according to the narrator, is “not very praiseworthy” and the family’s groom, Nabi, soon “replace[s] [the Kabuliwala] in her affections,” and then after that Mini begins to prefer being friends with other girls her age. She also stops visiting the narrator while he’s in his study, and the narrator admits that “I, in a sense, dropped her.”

Years later, once again during autumn, the narrator and his wife arrange Mini’s marriage. They are terribly sad to think that their “pride and joy” will soon be leaving their household for her husband’s. It is “a most beautiful morning,” but the narrator is feeling a lot of “grief” over the “imminent separation.” The house is very busy as preparations take place, but the narrator stays in his study to work. The Kabuliwala suddenly appears in the room unannounced and it is difficult to recognize him because his appearance has changed so much and he has lost his “vigour.” The Kabuliwala tells the narrator he had just been released from prison, reminding the narrator that he was “a would-be murder.”

The narrator nervously asks the Kabuliwala to leave because they are busy, but as he’s leaving the Kabuliwala asks to see the narrator’s “little girl.” The narrator believes that the Kabuliwala thinks Mini “was still just as she was” years before, the Kabuliwala has even brought some grapes, nuts, and raisins for her. The narrator tells him he can’t see Mini and the Kabuliwala prepares to leave again, but he asks the narrator to give Mini the treats he brought. The narrator tries to pay him, but the Kabuliwala tells him that he doesn’t want money and had come with his own daughter “in mind.”

The Kabuliwala reaches into his shirt, “somewhere close to his heart,” and pulls out “a crumpled piece of paper” that has “a small handprint” made from soot on it. The Kabuliwala brings this “memento of his daughter” with him when he leaves home to sell fruit. With tears brimming in his eyes, the narrator says he “forgot then that he was an Afghan raisin-seller and I a Bengali Babu,” instead realizing that “he was as I am”: a father. The handprint on the paper, belonging to Rahamat’s “little mountain-dwelling Parvati,” reminds the narrator of his own daughter, and so he sends word for Mini to come down.

Mini comes down wearing her wedding clothes, which startles the Kabuliwala. After a moment, he addresses her as “Little one” and asks her if she is going to her śvaśur-bāṛi, but now that Mini knows what the word means, she is embarrassed. The narrator’s “heart ache[s].” Mini silently leaves the room. With a great sigh, the Kabuliwala sits on the floor, finally understanding “that his own daughter would have grown up too,” and he would have to get to know her again after his eight-year absence.

The narrator gives the Kabuliwala some money and tells him to go back to Afghanistan, and that by his “blessed reunion [with Parvati], Mini will be blessed.” The money he gives the Kabuliwala means that the wedding will no longer have “electric illuminations” or a live band playing. Although this upsets the “womenfolk,” the narrator believes “the ceremony was lit by a kinder, more gracious light.”