Page 26 - English Class 08

They had many quaint jokes, which afforded them much amusement. Seated in front of

him, looking down on his gigantic frame in all her tiny dignity, Mini would ripple her face
with laughter and begin: “O Kabuliwala! Kabuliwala! What have you got in your bag?”

And he would reply, in the nasal accents of the mountaineer: “An elephant!” Not much
cause for merriment, perhaps; but how they both enjoyed the fun! And for me, this child’s
talk with a grown-up man had always in it something strangely fascinating.

Then the Kabuliwala, not to be behindhand, would take his turn: “Well, little one, and
when are you going to the father-in-law’s house?”

Now, most small Bengali maidens have heard long ago about the father-in-law’s house;
but we, being a little new-fangled, had kept these things from our child, and Mini at this
question must have been a trifle bewildered. But she would not show it, and with ready tact

replied: “Are you going there?”
Amongst men of the Kabuliwala’s class, however, it is well known that the words father-

in-law’s house have a double meaning. It is a euphemism for jail, the place where we are
well cared for, at no expense to ourselves. In this sense would the sturdy pedlar take my
daughter’s question. “Ah,” he would say, shaking his fist at an invisible policeman, “I will
thrash my father-in-law!” Hearing this, and picturing the poor discomfited relative, Mini

would go off into peals of laughter, in which her formidable friend would join.
These were autumn mornings, the very time of the 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
thunder-bolt. In the presence of this Kabuliwala, 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
turbanned 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

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