Synopsis
Rehmat (Chhabi Biswas), a middle-aged fruit
seller from Afghanistan comes to Calcutta
to hawk his merchandise and befriends a
small Bengali girl called Minnie (Tinku
Thakur) who reminds him of his own daughter
back in Afghanistan. He puts up at a boarding
house along with his countrymen, which is
owned by a rude landlord. One day Rehmat
receives news of his daughter’s illness
through a letter from his country and he
decides to leave for his country. When the
landlord demands rent from him an argument
ensues and Rehmat stabs the man. He is arrested
and put behind bars for 8 years. On the
day of his release he goes to meet Minnie
but discovers that she has grown up to a
14-year old girl and is about to get married.
Rehmat realizes that his own daughter also
has grown up and he sets out for his country
after 10 long years…
The film
The character of the 'kabuliwala' swathed
in his long loose garments and an intimidating
but fanciful turban and carrying a huge
mysterious sack slung across his sturdy
shoulder that contained god knows what,
had an iconic presence in the Bengali mindscape
till at least 15 years ago. The advent of
globalization has gradually displaced this
moneylender whose tales of extracting dues
by unfair means from debtors at high rate
of interests evoked mostly fear and loathing
in the minds of the timid Bengali middle-class.
To build a story around such an appalling
character and his relationship with a little
frolicking girl was a masterly stroke of
imagination. The story was already there
and it was left to the temerity of a young
director to take the risk of translating
it into the big screen and bring it to huge
commercial success, specially since it did
not involve a regular boy meets girl stuff.
 Tapan
Sinha’s Kabuliwala remains
a favourite diet of Bengali cinegoers till
date. In fact, the charm of the film lies
in its simplistic narration, which is actually
not so simple if one looked at the original
source material, a popular short story by
Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore’s stories
have always been difficult to film because
they are not plot driven but read more like
a narration told in first person in this
case by the father of the little girl. Director
Tapan Sinha does a commendable job in working
up situations and incidents and subplots
and threading them together to form a cohesive
narrative despite a tad too long 8-minute
exposition of Afghanistan at the beginning.
The bulk of the film of course is the relationship
between the protagonist and the 6-year old
Minnie played absolutely wonderfully by
Tinku Thakur, the younger sister of Sharmila
Tagore. Undoubtedly, she is the USP of the
film and it is a wonder why she was never
seen in any other film later. The indomitable
Chhabi
Biswas who essays the role of the swarthy
trader from Afghanistan perfectly catches
the nuances and accents of the rugged foreigner
despite over done makeup by today's standards.
In fact, all the actors deliver commendable
performances, be it Radhamohan Bhattacharya
as the father of the child who is a writer
of romantic adventures or the beautiful
Manju Dey as the paranoid and finicky mother
who keeps the entire household in tenterhooks
with her undue demands on hygiene and imagined
tales of child lifting and slavery in a
faraway land called Afghanistan. The actress
playing the elderly maid servant and fills
her mistress’s mind against the Afghani
stranger and the popular Johor Roy who plays
the servant add the right light notes in
the film. The whole family represents an
old world charm belonging to a bygone era
but is identifiable and immensely likable.
In fact it is a feel good film with all
the correct notes and even the jailors and
guards in the jail where the protagonist
is lodged come across as nice souls despite
their assumed strictness.
The main track of Minnie and Rehmat is
well worked out, starting from the moment
when Rehmat first spots Minnie amongst a
group of kids who teases him on the streets
and she runs for her dear life when the
tall kabuliwala looks at her. Minnie spots
him again few days later from her window
and runs to her father in panic and it is
left to her refined father to melt the ice
between the improbable pair. Rehmat begins
to bribe her with nuts and raisins and gradually
warms himself into her little heart till
she has the big man swirling around her
little finger. In perhaps the film's most
memorable scene, she even makes him sing
and dance to a popular Tagore song but not
with much success. Each time they meet it
not only sets off sparks between the two
characters where the elderly kabuliwala
regales her with fanciful stories and raisins,
but also gives rise to a whole lot of tensions
in the minds of the kid’s mother and
the elderly maid servant, quite natural
reactions in people who have led cloistered
lives throughout and suspect people who
do not belong to their ilk and language
group. It is only the sensitive father who
does not bother about this relationship
but in fact pampers it; if there is one
thing he does not quite like it is the free
nuts and raisins that the kabuliwala loads
on the little girl and he forces him to
take money for it much to the embarrassment
of the otherwise no-nonsense trader.
The major turning point comes an hour into
film when Rehmat refuses to part with the
5-rupee note that has been personally given
to him by Minnie on the eve of his departure
to Afghanistan; this leads to a scuffle
with the owner of the lodge that culminates
in Rehmat stabbing the man. He is packed
off to jail for a period of 8 years where
his good behaviour earns him the kudos and
respect of his jailors. Minnie and his family
conveniently forget him over the period
and when he comes out of jail after 8 years
and goes to meet her, it is the day of her
marriage. Rehmat thinks that she is still
the little girl and is blissfully unaware
of the unrelenting passage of time. Realisation
dawns on him as the grown up Minnie, now
14 years old, does not recognize him and
after a brief unspoken meeting between the
two old friends, she turns and goes back
inside her house. It is a heartrending climax;
he realizes that his daughter, if she is
still alive would also be of Minnie’s
age. Rehmat also turns back and is about
to step out of the courtyard of the house
when Minnie’s mother has a change
of heart; she hands the money saved to put
up electric lights on the façade
of the house and hire an ‘English’
band to play at her daughter’s wedding
to her husband and asks him to give it to
Rehmat so that he can take it back to his
land and meet his daughter. The two fathers
look at each other as Minnie’s father
hands over the money to Rehmat. It is a
very poignant moment in the film; only a
father can understand the pain of another
father. Rehmat takes the money and embarks
on his long journey back home…
The few tracks in this otherwise old-fashioned
feel-good sentimental tale, which could
have been avoided and helped reduce the
length, are the subplots of the death of
a convict’s girl (Kali Banerjee in
a cameo role as the convict) and the false
charge of theft that is heaped on Rahamat
when he is accused of stealing the necklace
of a young girl who happens to be the daughter
of the jailor’s boss. One feels that
these are overloaded subplots added primarily
to underline the protagonist’s pain
of separation from his own daughter and
Minnie’s memories.
Ravi Shankar’s score does not impinge
on the film and goes with the subject. But
a point here. The use of Tagore’s
songs are more of an obligation since the
story belonged to him and perhaps could
have been avoided; but then it was prestigious
to have a couple of the Nobel laureate’s
songs for commercial reasons and more importantly
also to gain respectability. The art direction
is elementary and the city of Calcutta is
also not well exploited in this urban tale
except the scenes set in the parks. The
interior scenes look most set-like and stand
out like sore thumbs against the real locations
of the city.
Kabuliwala won the President’s
Gold Medal for the Best Film for the year
1956 and inspired a Hindi remake five years
later starring Balraj
Sahni and Usha Kiron. The Hindi version
was directed by Hemen Gupta and produced
by Bimal
Roy with music by Salil Choudhury. The
Hindi version is a fine film in its own
right but die hard Bengali cinema fans still
swear by this 1956 film as the
definitive version of Tagore's short story.
The film also won a special mention for
its music at Berlin in 1957.
Contributed by Ranjan Das, an alumnus
of the Film and Television Institute of
India (FTII), Pune with specialization in
Film Editing 1992. Having edited various
documentaries and directed different programmes
for Bengali Television, he has also written
for the popular TV serials Sidhhant,
Crime Patrol and Rihayee.
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