15 | April | 2020 | Sabethville

Book Review : Kabuliwala, , Author Rabindranath Tagore, translated and posted by ranu.

Kabuliwala is a story of a poor man from Afghanistan. Life was difficult in his homeland, he left his country to try his fortune elsewhere. He took a few shawls and some nuts and raisins to sell. He came to Bengal with some of his friends.

His name was Rehmat which means compassionate. He was an honest and simple man , he trusted everyone he met. he let the people have the shawls, even if they could not pay, they promised they’ll pay later.

Some people took advantage of his kindness, they never paid him and accused him of lying.

During this time he met a little girl named Mini. He heard the maid calling her Khuki( a little girl) Khuki reminded him of his own daughter who was Khuki’s age.

He and Khuki became good friends. Everything was going well, until the maid told Khuki’s mother not to trust Rehmat because he was not a nice man and some day he’d take Khuki away and sell her.

Khuki’s mother did not pay attention and ignored the maid. She was able to convince the mother, but the father liked the man and did not have any problem trusting him. The maid succeeded in breaking this innocent friendship.

The father told his wife it was wrong to think ill of this innocent man. The mother realized her mistake in the end, she gave Rehmat some money to take home to his wife and child, she saved for her own daughter’s marriage.

Though the story had a happy ending . The author pointed out the fact that human beings are very cruel, they think that if someone is poor, he/she are not worthy of trust.

I loved the story , it became popular and was made into a movie.

The story was written in Bengali, therefore I translated it.