Ali Fazal credited as playing...
Abdul Karim
- Abdul Karim: Listen, little drop, give yourself up without regret and in return you will gain the ocean. Give yourself away and in the great sea you will be secure.
- Queen Victoria: Everyone I love has died and I just go on and on. What is the point?
- Abdul Karim: Service, Your Majesty. We are here for a greater purpose.
- [as Queen Victoria reaches for her stamp, Abdul grabs it for her instead]
- Queen Victoria: Thank you, Mr...
- Abdul Karim: Abdul. Abdul Karim.
- [Queen Victoria continues to write her letters]
- Abdul Karim: I am always writing.
- [Queen Victoria looks at him]
- Abdul Karim: In India, I'm writing, a-all day, every day.
- Queen Victoria: So in India, you are not a servant?
- Abdul Karim: No. In India, I'm writing in my very big book.
- Queen Victoria: You're writing a book?
- Abdul Karim: Yes. I'm writing every name, who they are, what they have done. This is my life. Every day, I'm writing, from morning to night.
- Queen Victoria: And this is fiction?
- Abdul Karim: No. It is the very truth.
- Queen Victoria: I don't understand. If you are an author, why are you here, uh, presenting me with the m... uh, with the m...
- Abdul Karim: Mo-Mohur.
- [Queen Victoria nods]
- Abdul Karim: It is my humble privilege to serve Her Majesty.
- [Queen Victoria smiles, then continues to write her letters]
- Abdul Karim: I was the one who chose your carpets.
- Queen Victoria: Carpets?
- Abdul Karim: Yes. The Viceroy asked Mr. Tyler, sir, but actually, it was me. Y-you have to have a very good eye for the carpets. Uh, like...
- [walks to the carpet in front of the desk]
- Abdul Karim: This is a very nice one, for example. Very, very tight knots. The art of carpets, uh, came to India from Persia with the great Emperor Akbar. The s-skill of a carpet is to bring all the different kinds of threads together and weave something we can all stand on.
- Queen Victoria: You seem to know a great deal about it.
- Abdul Karim: My family were carpet makers, but now I write in the book. Life is like a carpet. We weave in and out to make a pattern.
- Queen Victoria: That is a very beautiful image.
- Abdul Karim: Look. Here is the bird of freedom, caught forever in the design.
- Queen Victoria: So, in India, you are a poet?
- Abdul Karim: No. In India, I make a ledger of the prisoners.
- Queen Victoria: We are all prisoners, Mr. Karim.
- Sir Henry Ponsonby: To celebrate the completion of the Durbar Room, a little surprise, Your Majesty.
- [Queen Victoria is presented with a mango in a box]
- Queen Victoria: What is it?
- Sir Henry Ponsonby: A mango, Your Majesty.
- Abdul Karim: One moment, Your Majesty.
- [Abdul looks at the mango and presses it, some juice sticking to his finger]
- Abdul Karim: Uh, it-it's... off.
- Queen Victoria: Sir Henry, this mango is off.
- [servant closes the mango box and backs away]
- Sir Henry Ponsonby: I-I'm terribly sorry, Your Majesty.