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How does Tagore poignantly describe the arc of friendship and heartbreak in "Kabuliwala?"

Tagore shows that friendship and heartbreak are closely related in "Kabuliwala."


The association between Mini and her Kabuliwala represents the essence of friendship.  While Mini is at first scared of the Kabuliwala, they wind up the best of friends.  They share jokes and laughter.  He gives her dates and raisins, and she has found a companion that allows her to be her chatter-box self.  Neither one of them gets tired of the other, as Kabuliwala dutifully visits each day.  When he is arrested, he makes sure that she is one of the last people he speaks to before being taken away.


Over his eight year sentence, Mini grows up.  His absence and her maturation combine to bury the friendship that was once there.  When Kabuliwala returns to see his friend, she is a soon-to-be bride who does not acknowledge the previous depth of their connection.  She has moved on to the pressing affairs of her own life.  The joke about her "father-in-law's house" has an entirely different meaning to her.  Kabuliwala rushes out of prison to see if his friendship still exists.  He finds nothing except heartbreak.


Friendship and heartbreak go together in "Kabuliwala."  The laughter and excitement created in the midst of friendship become sources of pain when we see that it has come to pass.  Tagore shows friendship to be contingent, dependent on a particular moment of time in people's lives.  It is an instant in time where connection is forged, but its lack of permanence causes heartbreak.

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