Kabuliwala, a Song, and a Boy Who Became a Migrant

How Tagore’s Kabuliwala, an iconic film song, and a childhood memory made me rethink what it means to be a migrant

An Iconic Song

On Independence Day—15 August 2026—among the patriotic songs played on the public-address system at an event not far from my home, I heard Ae Mere Pyare Watan*, the evergreen song from the 1961 film Kabuliwala. The poignant song effortlessly tugs at the heart whenever I listen to it.

I had never thought of myself as a migrant feeling nostalgic for my motherland. Why then is the song so appealing? Is it Prem Dhawan’s thoughtful lyrics, Manna Dey’s soulful singing, Salil Chowdhury’s creative music, or its perfect placement in the film?

The Song: Beyond Patriotism

If you have watched the film, you would agree that the song is more nostalgic than patriotic. Picturised on Wazir Mohammed Khan, a Pathan of Afghan origin, with Balraj Sahni and other Afghan migrants listening to the plaintive song, it is a heart-aching remembrance of a distant homeland.

Interestingly, W. M. Khan had sung the very first song, De De Khuda Ke Naam Pe, in India’s first sound movie, Alam Ara (1931). Playback singing technology was still a few years away. W. M. Khan was a singer and, acting as a fakir, sang the song live on the set to the accompaniment of a harmonium that he hung from his shoulder.

Ae Mere Pyare Watan transcended the specific linguistic and cultural context of the film to become an iconic, universal anthem of migrants. In fact, the song reinterpreted the character of Kabuliwala.

In the original story, he was a father sorely missing his little daughter left behind in distant Afghanistan. In the 1961 film, he was a doting father and also an economic migrant in a far-off country, hoping to earn his way out of grinding poverty and living every migrant’s dream of a better life.

Vatan, the Urdu word, is of Arabic origin. It originally referred to one’s place of birth, village, or hometown, and later acquired the wider meaning of a nation with the emergence of the modern concept of nationhood.

Vatan is grammatically masculine and is often translated as “fatherland”—a conception significantly different from the idea of the motherland embodied in Bharat Mata or Vande Mataram.

The Story

I had read Tagore’s famous story in Odia at school, in English at college, and, after listening to the nostalgic song, in a Hindi translation.

How would the story feel in Gurudev’s original Bengali? I tried reading it, but struggled with the text.

After briefly mulling over the challenge, I found an excellent Bengali recitation on YouTube—the next-best experience to reading the story in Bengali. Then, voilà! I listened to the recitation once again with the transcript in sync and loved it. The story embraced me like Vagdevi—the Goddess of Speech, Learning, and Music—in Odia, English, Hindi, and Bengali. A multilingual immersion and benediction!

Kabuliwala is a touching story of filial bond, the economic compulsion of long-distance migration, and the anguish of a migrant for family and home.

Tagore was only 31 when he published Kabuliwala, yet the story is a fine example of his masterly storytelling.

In just a few sentences, Tagore creates the special bond between Mini and Rahmat, the character sketches, a word-picture of distant Afghanistan, the home of a bhadralok Bengali writer, and the here-and-now of Calcutta.

Rahmat is dressed in a soiled, loose-fitting dress, a big turban on head, a jhola on his back, a few boxes of grapes in hand, a very tall man, walking the streets in long, measured steps. A complete portrait through minimal words!

The beginning, middle, and end are immaculately crafted. The story begins with Mini’s endless chatter, her rapid-fire queries, her demand for conversation and play, and her enchanting innocence. Her initial fear is dispelled by Kabuliwala’s warm affection and throaty laughter.

The stabbing and arrest are dealt with in a sentence or two, and the story moves swiftly towards its climax. Rahmat, upon release from jail, visits Mini’s home on the day of her marriage.

Why Rahmat is so very fond of Mini is revealed only at the end, when he shows Mini’s father the black imprints of the little palms of his daughter on a piece of paper which he has always kept close to his chest.

The ending is poignant. Rahmat realises that his little girl would also have grown up, and that his meeting with his daughter on returning home would be very different.

Time changes everything. The innocence of childhood, unconditional love, and uncomplicated friendship are transient. Adults relate differently, children relate differently, and a child and an adult bond differently.

The Films

Tagore’s story, published in 1892, has been translated into several languages and adapted into films, television shows, and stage plays.

Among the films, the 1956 Bengali Kabuliwala, directed by Tapan Sinha, is widely regarded as a masterful cinematic adaptation. Chhabi Biswas’s emotive performance and Ravi Shankar’s memorable music gave the film a lasting place in Indian cinema. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film and the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize at the 7th Berlin International Film Festival in 1957.

The 1961 Hindi Kabuliwala, produced by Bimal Roy, remains a beloved classic. Balraj Sahni’s deeply poignant portrayal of Rahmat is celebrated as one of his finest performances. The film is also famously remembered for Manna Dey’s soulful Ae Mere Pyare Watan.

(Balraj Sahni as Rahmat in the 1961 Hindi film Kabuliwala)

Balraj reportedly lived with the Kabuliwalas of Calcutta for some time to know more about them, learn a little Pashto, and observe their intonation and mannerisms. Manna Dey’s Ae Mere Pyare Watan and Hemant Kumar’s Ganga Aaye Kahan Se accentuated the migrant’s anguish and yearning for home and homeland.

Tagore visualised the two different worlds through vocabulary; the films expanded and enriched those worlds through audio-visual inputs. The Bengali story and the Hindi song speak in very different registers, yet both make the distant homeland palpable.

Making of a Migrant

The story and the song raised a question I had not seriously considered previously.

When does one become a migrant?

Is it necessary to live in a foreign country, or does one become a migrant in one’s own country—a Malayalee in Delhi, a Marwari in Mangalore, a Bhaiya from UP in Mumbai, or an Odia in the Hindi heartland?

I was eleven when I left my village for high-school education, after which I visited the village only during the summer vacation, and briefly during festivals.

Yet to make friends at the new school, I missed my sisters and grandfather at home, and friends in the village. I missed Jira river, Palsha Jor, Bada Dongri, Luhura Mal, Kanta Bandh, Shundhi Bandh, and Shyam’s aam burei.

I missed the dust from the village roads in the dry season, and the mud during the rains. I missed the thick darkness that drew me into her lap when the kerosene lantern was extinguished after early dinner.

The Project Colony where I lived had a little park with swings, slides, and tubular trees. Alas, the creaky swing was not half as much fun as the grandfather banyan’s aerial roots, and the park was a poor cousin of the vast open play-world that the hills, rivers, and forests of the village offered.

I had lost the world I had known since birth, and the new world was yet to grow on me.

Looking back, I realise I became a migrant at that tender age. Little did I know then that I had left my village for good, never to return.

Deshantar Gaman

Among my father’s novels and magazines was a slender blue notebook with a few pages of handwritten notes in ink. A horoscope chart, drawn by an unnamed astrologer—possibly a colleague of my father—contained brief notes regarding the future prospects of the boy whose Jataka name was xxx. That was my name, so I read the entries, skipping the horoscope diagrams which made no sense to me.

I still remember one of the forecasts: deshantar gaman—migration from homeland.

Did it come true?

It depends on how I look at it. I did not migrate to a foreign country, but spent the better part of my life far from my place of birth, in a region with a different language and a different culture.

During my work years, I had no place I could call home and lived for brief periods in several towns.

Perhaps migration is not always about crossing a national border. Sometimes it begins much earlier—when a child leaves the landscape in which he grew up and discovers, years later, that he has never quite stopped longing for it.

***

* Manna Dey singing the song in a studio: https://youtu.be/91WEGN-KwO4?si=sLgrSxxDGur4wQdr