{"id":8911,"date":"2024-10-05T06:30:08","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T01:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=8911"},"modified":"2024-10-03T11:52:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T06:22:55","slug":"tapan-sinha-kabuliwala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/tapan-sinha-kabuliwala\/","title":{"rendered":"Kabuliwala Champions a Humanity That Transcends Superficial Differences"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kabuliwala-Chhabi

Chhabi Biswas and Oindrilla Thakur in Tapan Sinha’s Kabuliwala<\/em> (Bengali)<\/p><\/div>\n

Rabindranath Tagore\u2019s Kabuliwala,<\/em> written in 1892, is the story of fathers and daughters, memories retained and memories lost, a shared sense of loss, and a human connection that transcends class, religion and race. It is a simple, unassuming tale familiar to most Indians \u2013 that of Rahmat, a migrant from Afghanistan who hawks dry fruits on the streets of Calcutta, and of his endearing but transient friendship with Mini, the five-year-old daughter of a Bengali middle-class family. Rahmat has had to leave his own little girl behind in Afghanistan, and it is this separation that forms the crux of the story (and the film).<\/p>\n

Adapting literature to film is not an easy task. And adapting Tagore\u2019s literature, with its strong connection to the Bengali psyche, is even more fraught.\u00a0 Any deviation from the source is sure to be condemned. So, Tapan Sinha\u2019s cinematic adaptation stays faithful to the original story barring a few extrapolations and changes. Yet, the Kabuliwala<\/em> we see on screen is vastly different in tone and mood from Tagore\u2019s short story.<\/p>\n

\"Radhamohan

Oindrila (Tinku) Thakur as Mini and Radhamohan Bhattacharya as her father<\/p><\/div>\n

Tagore used Mini\u2019s father as the narrator; the story of Mini\u2019s friendship with the Kabuliwala is told from the father\u2019s perspective. We never learn much about the Kabuliwala, not even his name, until the very end when a short paragraph gives us a glimpse into the man\u2019s psyche. The great litterateur leaves his Kabuliwala to his readers\u2019 imaginations.<\/p>\n

In Sinha\u2019s hands, the story becomes the Kabuliwala\u2019s. We are introduced to him as a person, know his name, and see events unfold from his perspective. In so doing, Sinha gives us a deeper look into Rahmat\u2019s inner world.<\/p>\n

\"Chhabi

Warden sees the five-rupee note given by Mini<\/p><\/div>\n

There is, for instance, the scene in the jail where Rahmat is incarcerated, where a guard refuses his request to look at his belongings. The warden who intervenes, initially tells Rahmat that he cannot handle his belongings daily. But when he sees Rabiya\u2019s handprint and learns about the five-rupee note that Mini gave Rahmat, he is kind enough to give his permission. This scene establishes two things \u2013 one is, of course, the jailor\u2019s innate kindness. But it also helps us see Rahmat as a father who yearns for his daughter and<\/em> for the little girl who has come to represent her. It also establishes his grief at being separated from them.<\/p>\n

This subplot, as also the one with the jailor\u2019s daughter, is Sinha\u2019s addition to the original story. It subtly emphasises Rahmat\u2019s fatherhood \u2013 his affectionate behaviour towards the jailor\u2019s daughter shows (rather than tells) us what kind of a father he is. These scenes serve to flesh out Tagore\u2019s Kabuliwala (who is only presented to us through the lens of Mini\u2019s father) into a three-dimensional character with feelings and emotions. They allow us to invest in Rahmat\u2019s camaraderie with his compatriots, his homesickness and his longing for his daughter; they make us feel more intensely for his deep sense of grief at the end of the story.<\/p>\n

Sinha also made other changes: in the story, Rahmat stabs a customer who refuses to pay for a shawl he bought (and now denies buying). In the film, the victim is Rahmat\u2019s landlord who insists upon being paid an extra month and demands that Rahmat give him the five-rupee note that Mini had given him. This makes the argument more personal.<\/p>\n

But the biggest change is at the end: in Tagore\u2019s story, Mini\u2019s father gives Rehmat the money he had kept aside for the lighting at his daughter\u2019s wedding. Sinha makes the mother, who has long dreamt of the lighting and the band at her daughter\u2019s wedding, hand over the money she has saved to her husband to give Rahmat so he can visit his daughter.<\/p>\n

These changes take nothing away from the underlying humanity of Tagore\u2019s story. Indeed, the last change, especially, humanises Mini\u2019s mother who, both in the story and the film, is a stand-in for society at large \u2013 prejudiced, bigoted, and fearful of people and things she does not understand.<\/p>\n

Sinha subtly mirrors situations as well; the father-daughter bond between Rahmat and Rabiya (even if she has very little screen time) is replicated in the bond shared between Mini and her father as well as between Mini and Rahmat.<\/p>\n

Similarly, when Rahmat returns from jail, he cannot recognize his little playmate in the young woman standing before him, partly hidden behind her father. Mini, too, has forgotten the kindly man with whom she had spent many a happy moment. Rahmat\u2019s grief is not just that Mini does not recognize him; it is the realisation that his <\/em>daughter will have grown up as well and that he will be as much a stranger to her as he is to Mini.<\/p>\n

\"Mini

Mini gives money to Rahmat<\/p><\/div>\n

In his telling, Sinha draws attention to the differences and similarities between the two fathers: while tolerant of his daughter\u2019s friendship with the Kabuliwala, Mini\u2019s father had never seen the Afghan as a social equal. This is evident in his discomfort with Rahmat giving Mini unsolicited gifts and in his insistence upon paying for them. But when Rahmat turns back to show him the tattered handprint wrapped around the five-rupee note, Mini\u2019s father finally discovers a shared human connection: that of yearning for a loved one. Rahmat has been separated from his daughter for years. By the film\u2019s end, Mini\u2019s father is about to be separated from his<\/em> daughter.<\/p>\n

Sinha\u2019s deep dive into Tagorean humanism reflects not just in his adaptations of Tagore\u2019s works but in his vast oeuvre spanning four decades or more. Of his Tagore adaptations (the others being Kshudito Pashan, Atithi <\/em>and Kadambini<\/em> [a short within Satabdir Kanya<\/em>]), Kabuliwala <\/em>still remains relevant in its critical questioning of the stereotyping of an entire race or religion and in its championship of humanity that transcends superficial differences.<\/p>\n

So many of its themes find parallels in present times \u2013 people still migrate in search of a better life; migrants are still \u2018othered\u2019 in towns and cities not their own; people still fear those who do not look like them; prejudices and inbuilt biases still make us fear that which we do not understand\u2026<\/p>\n

This is a theme that filmmakers Shombhu Mitra and Amit Mitra had earlier successfully explored in their film Ek Din Ratrey<\/em> (filmed simultaneously in Hindi as Jagte Raho<\/em>) in 1956. There, a migrant worker in search of water to quench his thirst is hunted by the residents of the apartment building in which he has sought refuge. The film highlighted middle-class hypocrisy while simultaneously calling out the inherent prejudice that accuses a poor migrant of theft, simply because he\u2019s a stranger.<\/p>\n

\"Balraj

Balraj Sahni in Bimal Roy’s Kabuliwala<\/em> (Hindi)<\/p><\/div>\n

Fellow filmmaker Bimal Roy discussed this \u2018othering\u2019 in a gentler way in Sujata <\/em>(1959),<\/em> where the foster daughter, who is of a lower caste, is consistently referred to as \u2018beti jaisi\u2019. <\/em>Regardless of the compassion shown by the upper-caste couple in bringing up an orphaned baby, the mother\u2019s in-built prejudices will not allow her to accept the girl wholeheartedly. Roy quietly skewers this bias by showing us that even \u2018good\u2019 people harbour innate prejudices that are then cemented by societal endorsement.<\/p>\n

Decades have passed since then, but seemingly nothing has changed. Anubhav Sinha\u2019s Bheed <\/em>(2023) tackles the plight of migrant workers during the 2020 lockdown. While the story is about the largest migration that India has seen since the Partition, the film also showcases how migrant workers are othered in a way that dehumanises their existence.<\/p>\n

The more sinister \u2018othering\u2019 is the consistent othering of a minority community in films. Muslims in Hindi films have their identities submerged into convenient tropes. The women are veiled, subject to and empathising with regressive practices, with little or no agency (Chaudvin ka Chand, Nikaah, Bewafa se Wafa<\/em>). The men appear as the token \u2018good Muslim\u2019 (Chak De!, Hum Aap ke Hain Kaun<\/em>), terrorists (Fiza, Mission Kashmir, Kurbaan<\/em>) \u00a0or gangsters (Agneepath,<\/em>). It is this demonisation of an entire religion that Anubhav Sinha explores in his earlier film, Mulk <\/em>(2018). The narrative is hard-hitting, compelling and on-the-nose. In laying bare societal double standards, the contemporary director pulls no punches.<\/p>\n

\"Chhabi

For Rahmat, Mini is a stand-in for his own daughter<\/p><\/div>\n

But Tapan Sinha is a more sensitive storyteller, with a penchant for seeking out the intrinsic goodness in his characters. And Tagore\u2019s story exemplifies that search for goodness in people. \u00a0The titular character is both migrant and<\/em> Muslim; tall, bearded, clad in a Pathan suit and very different from the dhoti<\/em>-wearing Bengali bhadralok \u2013 <\/em>he\u2019s to be feared because he\u2019s so different. Yet, Rahmat, the \u2018outsider\u2019, bonds with a child as yet free of the social prejudices of adults. For Rahmat, Mini is a stand-in for his own daughter. So, he brings her gifts of nuts and raisins, listens admiringly to her non-stop chatter and makes her laugh with his tall tales.<\/p>\n

Mini\u2019s friendship with Rahmat is based on tolerance and acceptance and transcends age, gender, religion and nationality. It reflects Mini\u2019s lack of social conditioning, her mother\u2019s fear and distrust of ‘foreigners’ notwithstanding. Though initially fearing that Rahmat\u2019s jhola<\/em> contains the children he\u2019s kidnapped, Mini is soon amused by his tales of imaginary elephants inside the bag. Sinha makes Mini symbolic of the innocence and goodness that Tagore champions. In his sensitive handling, the viewer experiences the power of love and compassion in a world fractured by hate and distrust. Through Mini, her father, the warden, etc., Sinha creates a gentler, kinder society that is welcoming towards and accepting of outsiders.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s biggest strength lies in this gentleness \u2013 the message of universal brotherhood and unconditional love is woven into the story with so much affection that it\u2019s hard not to be enthralled. Sinha also uses Pandit Ravi Shankar\u2019s music \u2013 which won him the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize at the 7th<\/sup> Berlinale \u2013 so naturally that it melds into the narrative.<\/p>\n

Kabuliwala <\/em>ends on a poignant yet ambiguous note. Like Tagore, who wrote \u201c\u2026shesh hoye hoilo na shesh\u201d<\/em> (loosely translates into \u201cIt\u2019s not over\u201d), we are left wondering whether Rahmat will reunite with his daughter. Yet the compassion with which Mini\u2019s family enable a father to unite with his long-separated daughter leaves you with a feeling of hope \u2013 and a lump in your throat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Click Tapan Sinha@100<\/a><\/h2>\n

for Critiques, Reviews, Interviews<\/h2>\n

\u2014 The Centenary Tribute Series<\/h2>\n