The Kabuliwallahs on the Pilgrim Path

The Power of a Story

This is a different sort of post – neither about the Camino, nor about hiking. This week’s events put that out of my mind. I keep politics out of my blogs, and news- but this is different, it a story about a story writer – the great Tagore, and a Kabuliwallah.

I’ve read this story of a vendor from Afghanistan in Hindi and Engiish, as a child, as an adult, and now it sprang instantly to mind in the way the brain throws up random links – on hearing the torment unroiling in Afghanistan. All through Indian history, the Afghans have been plunging down the mountains, as invaders, as refugees, as sellers of dried fruit, shawls and nuts. And growing up in India we had a complicated relationship with the idea of Afghanistan, wasn’t that where the all conquering Mughal dynasy came from originally? Didn’t the tribesmen repeatedly raid Kashmir? Then why were the actual people who we met from Afghanistan so simple, kind and charming?

Which is what this story is about – there is enough angst, misery and pain in the news, sometimes this is so overwhelming that in our safe homes,  we cannot comprehend the loss, the terror and the pain.  And we may be we are guilty of forgetting it, just as Mini forgot Abdur Rahman, the Kabuliwallah who was her great childhood friend and purveyor of treats.
I’ve never read this story without tearing up and feeling my heart break a little, and apart from the pain of the Kabuliwallah, it is the hardening of the child’s tender heart, the forgetting of friendship and the loss of father that moves me, the master storyteller Rabindranath Tagore may never have seen Kabul, but he knew people and loss.

On a personal note, do you know that I once was almost kidnapped in Kabul as a teenager? More on that later.

In this story, the statistics fall away to reveal a father and a daughter and a piece of paper that binds them.
That is the power of story – here is an extract, and you can click the button to download the complete story, truly an irisdescent gem.

“These were autumn mornings, the very time of year when kings of old went forth to conquest; and I, never stirring from my little corner in Calcutta, would let my mind wander over the whole world. At the very name of another country, my heart would go out to it, and at the sight of a foreigner in the streets, I would fall to weaving a network of dreams,—the mountains, the glens, and the forests of his distant home, with his cottage in its setting, and the free and independent life of far-away wilds. Perhaps the scenes of travel conjure themselves up before me, and pass and repass in my imagination all the more vividly, because I lead such a vegetable existence, that a call to travel would fall upon me like a thunderbolt. In the presence of this Kabuliwallah, I was immediately transported to the foot of arid mountain peaks, with narrow little defiles twisting in and out amongst their towering heights. I could see the string of camels bearing the merchandise, and the company of turbaned merchants, carrying some of their queer old firearms, and some of their spears, journeying downward towards the plains. I could see—but at some such point Mini’s mother would intervene, imploring me to “beware of that man.”

Mini’s mother is unfortunately a very timid lady. Whenever she hears a noise in the street, or sees people coming towards the house, she always jumps to the conclusion that they are either thieves, or drunkards, or snakes, or tigers, or malaria or cockroaches, or caterpillars, or an English sailor. Even after all these years of experience, she is not able to overcome her terror. So she was full of doubts about the Kabuliwallah, and used to beg me to keep a watchful eye on him.”

Don’t be timid like Mini’s mum, read the story for yourself.

Click the button to read the complete story. It will download as an .epub file that you can read instantly on your device. No optins needed.

Kabuliwallah – A Story

This is a different sort of post – neither about the Camino, nor about hiking. This week’s events put that out of my mind. I keep politics out of my blogs, and news- but this is different, it a story about a story writer – the great Tagore, and a Kabuliwallah.

I’ve read this story of a vendor from Afghanistan in Hindi and Engiish, as a child, as an adult, and now it sprang instantly to mind in the way the brain throws up random links – on hearing the torment unroiling in Afghanistan. All through Indian history, the Afghans have been plunging down the mountains, as invaders, as refugees, as sellers of dried fruit, shawls and nuts. And growing up in India we had a complicated relationship with the idea of Afghanistan, wasn’t that where the all conquering Mughal dynasy came from originally? Didn’t the tribesmen repeatedly raid Kashmir? Then why were the actual people who we met from Afghanistan so simple, kind and charming?

Which is what this story is about – there is enough angst, misery and pain in the news, sometimes this is so overwhelming that in our safe homes,  we cannot comprehend the loss, the terror and the pain.  And we may be we are guilty of forgetting it, just as Mini forgot Abdur Rahman, the Kabuliwallah who was her great childhood friend and purveyor of treats.
I’ve never read this story without tearing up and feeling my heart break a little, and apart from the pain of the Kabuliwallah, it is the hardening of the child’s tender heart, the forgetting of friendship and the loss of father that moves me, the master storyteller Rabindranath Tagore may never have seen Kabul, but he knew people and loss.

On a personal note, do you know that I once was almost kidnapped in Kabul as a teenager? More on that later.

The Power of a Story

In this story, the statistics fall away to reveal a father and a daughter and a piece of paper that binds them.
That is the power of story – here is an extract, and you can click the button to download the complete story, truly an irisdescent gem.

“These were autumn mornings, the very time of year when kings of old went forth to conquest; and I, never stirring from my little corner in Calcutta, would let my mind wander over the whole world. At the very name of another country, my heart would go out to it, and at the sight of a foreigner in the streets, I would fall to weaving a network of dreams,—the mountains, the glens, and the forests of his distant home, with his cottage in its setting, and the free and independent life of far-away wilds. Perhaps the scenes of travel conjure themselves up before me, and pass and repass in my imagination all the more vividly, because I lead such a vegetable existence, that a call to travel would fall upon me like a thunderbolt. In the presence of this Kabuliwallah, I was immediately transported to the foot of arid mountain peaks, with narrow little defiles twisting in and out amongst their towering heights. I could see the string of camels bearing the merchandise, and the company of turbaned merchants, carrying some of their queer old firearms, and some of their spears, journeying downward towards the plains. I could see—but at some such point Mini’s mother would intervene, imploring me to “beware of that man.”

Mini’s mother is unfortunately a very timid lady. Whenever she hears a noise in the street, or sees people coming towards the house, she always jumps to the conclusion that they are either thieves, or drunkards, or snakes, or tigers, or malaria or cockroaches, or caterpillars, or an English sailor. Even after all these years of experience, she is not able to overcome her terror. So she was full of doubts about the Kabuliwallah, and used to beg me to keep a watchful eye on him.”

Don’t be timid like Mini’s mum, read the story for yourself.

Click the button to read the complete story. It will download as an .epub file that you can read instantly on your device. No optins needed.