Kabuliwala (1961)

Directed by: Hemen Gupta
Music: Salil Choudhury
Lyrics: Prem Dhawan, Gulzar
Starring: Balraj Sahni, Sonu, Sajjan, 
Usha Kiron, Asit Sen

2 October 2024 was the legendary Bengali film director, Tapan Sinha’s birth centenary. Though not as well-known outside Bengal as his peers, Satyajit Ray or Mrinal Sen, Sinha holds a special place in the hearts and minds of  Bengali cine aficionados. Back in March this year, Antara Nanda Mondal and Amitava Nag asked me if I would contribute a piece for the series on Tapan Sinha that they were curating for their literary magazine, Silhouette. I was more than happy to. I chose Sinha’s Kabuliwala, considered the seminal adaptation of Rabindranath’s short story of the same name. Since the story is so familiar to most people, Nag wanted me to do a rather more critical analysis of the film rather than a straightforward review. You can read that article here. [Fellow blogger Madhulika, over at Dustedoff, wrote an excellent essay that compared and contrasted Khaniker Atithi and Zindagi Zindagi, both directed by Tapan Sinha.]

Coincidentally, Tom Daniels, for whom I occasionally subtitle old Hindi films, sent me the Hindi version of Kabuliwala to clean up the subs and create additional ones. It seemed like fate.  

The story begins in Afghanistan where Abdul Rahman Khan (Balraj Sahni) lives with his widowed mother and motherless daughter, Ameena (Baby Farida). Khan had mortgaged his land to pay for Ameena’s treatment, and when that wasn’t sufficient, had borrowed money from Gulzar Khan to make up the deficit. Now, he’s forced to mortgage his home to repay that loan. With Winter coming and his income drying up, he decides to leave for India where he hopes to make enough money to repay his debt.

Ameena is indignant when she realizes that he’s going to leave her behind, so her grandmother advises Khan to leave while she’s asleep. A broken-hearted Khan does as she tells him, but not before taking with him a reminder of his beloved daughter – an imprint of her hands.

Weeks pass by and Khan, now in India, is still pining for his daughter. But, heeding the advice of a friend, he finally sets out to trade the goods he’s bought from his homeland – shawls, raisins, pistachio, almonds, fruits. What he doesn’t know yet is that ‘Kabuliwala’ is a bogey man used to frighten children, most of whom run away when they see him coming. Not so Mini (Sonu) whose curiosity triumphs over her fear of him.

Soon, Mini overcomes her trepidation and is chattering away to the Kabuliwala as much as she does to her own father. Her father (Sajjan – in a non-villainous role), a warm, humorous man, encourages her friendship with the itinerant trader. He’s interested in Khan for another reason – he’s only read about Afghanistan. Now, he hopes to learn about the land and its people from Khan.

Mini’s mother, Rama (Usha Kiron) is aghast. Fearful of everything that’s strange to her, Rama is sure that the Kabuliwala will abduct Mini. That fear is fed by the exaggerated tales that their servant, Bhola (Asit Sen), narrates. But neither Bhola’s frightful tales nor her mother’s obvious disapproval impedes the fast-developing friendship between Mini and the Kabuliwala. Mini reminds Khan of the little girl he has left behind. He brings her gifts of dry fruits and raisins, listens admiringly to her non-stop chatter and makes her laugh with his tales of elephants hidden in his bag.

One day, Mini tells him that it’s her birthday and Khan promises, as he once promised Ameena, that he would bring her red bangles. But Rama, frightened and over-protective, insists that her husband send the Kabuliwala away. Reluctantly, he does so, and Khan, though hurt, quickly acquiesces.

But Mini is waiting for him – after all, he had promised her that he would come – hiding some of her birthday sweets within the folds of her sari to share with him. But when he doesn’t come that day or the next, Mini goes in search of her friend without informing anyone at home.

When her absence is noticed, Rama panics. She’s sure the Kabuliwala has abducted her daughter. Mini’s worried father goes searching for her in the neighbourhood. Bhola, meanwhile, is informing all and sundry that it appears that the Kabuliwala has kidnapped Mini. Soon, a mob is searching for the Kabuliwala.

Meanwhile, Khan, overhearing Mini’s parents’ conversation has gone off on his own, searching for the little girl who has become as dear to him as Ameena. And he finds her, drenched, sleeping under the stairs of a pavilion in the park. While he’s reassuring himself that Mini is okay, the mob descends on him, and egged on by Bhola, beats him mercilessly, despite Mini’s protests. Mini’s father appears just in time to stop any further mayhem.

Khan stumbles back to his quarters while Mini’s father takes her home. This incident has far-reaching consequences: Mini falls seriously ill and Khan is distraught.

Mini’s father finds him praying on the pavement opposite their house. He keeps vigil the whole night and is there in the morning when the doctor finally leaves – Mini is recovering. He begs her father to let him see her through the window, and having reassured himself that she’s indeed better, goes back to his quarters.

Then, missing Ameena dearly, he decides to return home. He’s already sent home the money to redeem his land and the house, and now, all he has to do is to collect the money for the goods he’s sold on credit. That’s easier said than done, he discovers, as a man whom he had earlier sold a shawl to, refuses to even recognize him. The argument soon gets out of hand and Khan pulls out a dagger and stabs the man. He is arrested at once.

What happens afterwards forms the crux of the story and the film.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Kabuliwala was a sparse short story that featured a writer (a stand-in for Tagore himself?) who believes that humanism triumphs over superficial differences that divide people, whether those differences are of race, religion, language, colour or geography. The story, translated into English by Sister Nivedita (an Irish woman named Margaret Elizabeth Noble), has been – over a century since it was originally published – has been popular in its many versions across the country. Tagore’s humanism transcended the geographical and linguistic borders of his native Bengal; his writing reflected almost universal concerns and issues and resonated with larger public consciousness.

Like Tapan Sinha, Hemen Gupta’s Kabhuliwala, while staying faithful to Tagore’s basic story, still differed from it. But both directors crafted sensitive films that do not detract from the simplicity of the original tale. Both star veteran actors – Chhabi Biswas in Bengali and Balraj Sahni in Hindi. The 1957 film had music by Ravi Shankar; the Hindi version had a score composed by Salil Choudhury.

And now…

Comparisons, comparisons (as Dustedoff would say)

Both Chhabi Biswas and Balraj Sahni overdid the ‘jovial Afghan’ role quite a bit, though I must confess – at the risk of offending my Bengali readers – that I thought Sahni did a far better job in the role than did Biswas. 

Except in the final scene, where Chhabi Biswas showed us what an extraordinary actor he could be – his expression is heart-wrenching.

Rahmat’s grief is not just that Mini has forgotten him; it is the realisation that his daughter will have grown up as well and he will be as much a stranger to her as he is to Mini. Similarly, Sonu in the role of Mini brought out Mini’s innocence in a far less irritating way than Oindrila Tagore in Bengali.

The relationship between Mini and her father too was far better etched in Hindi than in the Bengali version. Sajjan, in fact, with his quiet humour, and his evident affection for his little daughter, made the father a more approachable character than did Radhamohan Bhattacharya.

Mini’s father, a writer and a dreamer, though mourning his broken train of thought and the time lost when he should be writing is both indulgent and encouraging of his daughter’s curiosity and invested in his conversations with her.   

Manju Dey and Usha Kiron, both playing Mini’s mother in Bengali and Hindi respectively, did a commendable job, though the former had a more nuanced character arc that was missing in the latter – that change, however, meant that the Hindi version stayed truer to Tagore’s story.

Conversely, the Hindi film could not quite match the simple sparseness of its Bengali predecessor. The emotion is dialled to a higher pitch, the drama is more in your face and the climax – explaining what Tapan Sinha showed with such stark brevity – went on for far too long.Both films had made slight changes to the original story, but in my opinion, the Hindi film stretched the story far more (and to its detriment) than did the Bengali version.

The other sore point was the songs – Tapan Sinha eschewed them, preferring to meld Ravi Shankar’s music so beautifully into the narrative that it scarcely distracted. In contrast, Salil da’s score wasn’t well-integrated with the plot. Apart from the beautiful Ae mere pyaare watan and Ganga aaye kahan se, the other songs – Ae saba kehde mere deedar se and Kabuliwala seemed shoehorned in for no reason other than that a Hindi film needs songs.  

 These are just minor peeves, however. Both versions of the film are definitely worth viewing if only to revisit a more innocent time when little girls could become friends with burly strangers and spend time talking about imaginary elephants and about children who could be turned into dry fruit by magic.