The Story — The Thief’s Story

The narrator — a boy of fifteen named Hari Singh — was already an experienced petty thief when he first encountered Anil. He changed his name every month to stay one step ahead of the police and his former employers. He spotted Anil at a wrestling match — a tall, lean, relaxed-looking young man of about twenty-five — and sized him up immediately: kind and simple enough for my purpose. Irony A small act of flattery — "You look a bit of a wrestler yourself" — opened the conversation. Hari told him he wanted work. Anil said he couldn't pay. Hari asked if he could at least be fed. Anil asked if he could cook. Hari said he could — a lie. And so the arrangement began.

The meal Hari cooked that first night was apparently dreadful — Anil fed it to a stray dog and told him to leave. But Hari stayed on, smiling in his most appealing way, and something in his expression made Anil laugh rather than insist. He patted Hari on the head and said he would teach him to cook. He also began teaching him to write his name — and promised to teach him whole sentences, and how to add numbers. Hari recognised immediately that this was genuinely valuable: "I knew that once I could write like an educated man there would be no limit to what I could achieve." Irony

Life in Anil's room above the Jumna Sweet Shop was pleasant enough. Hari made morning tea, then took his time buying the day's provisions — managing to skim off about a rupee a day in small profits, which Anil almost certainly noticed but chose not to mention. Anil himself earned money in unpredictable bursts — borrowing one week, lending the next — writing articles for magazines, which Hari considered an odd way to make a living. One evening, Anil returned home with a small bundle of currency notes: he had sold a book to a publisher. That night, Hari watched him tuck the money under the mattress.

Hari had been with Anil for nearly a month without doing anything in his "line of work." One night, he made his decision. He waited until Anil was asleep — his face clear and unlined in the moonlight, showing none of the marks of worry that Hari himself carried — and slipped his hand silently under the mattress. He found the notes and drew them out without a sound. Anil stirred and turned in his sleep, facing him. Hari froze, then crept quietly out of the room and onto the road. He counted the money: six hundred rupees in fifty-rupee notes. Imagery He began to run.

At the railway station, Hari ran for the Lucknow Express — a train that was already beginning to pull away from the platform. He could have jumped into one of the carriages; the train had barely gathered speed. But he hesitated — for a reason he could not fully explain even to himself — and the train slid away without him. Symbolism He stood alone on the empty platform with six hundred rupees tucked at his waist and nowhere to go. He had no friends — he had always believed friendship was more inconvenient than useful. And he could hardly go back to a hotel near the station without drawing suspicion. The one person he knew well was the man he had just robbed.

Hari walked out of the station and through the bazaar. It was a cold November night, and a light drizzle had begun, quickly becoming a steady rain. He sat for a while on a bench in the maidan, then moved to the shelter of the clock tower — where the clock face showed midnight. The rain dampened the notes tucked against his skin. He sat with his thoughts — and for the first time in his short criminal career, he found himself thinking beyond the money. "Whole sentences," he thought, "could one day bring me more than a few hundred rupees." Symbolism Stealing was simple — and so was getting caught. But becoming a man of genuine respect and ability was something entirely different. He needed to go back to Anil. Not just for shelter. To learn to read and write.

Returning the money proved far more nerve-wracking than stealing it. It is considerably easier to take something than to put it back undetected. Hari slipped quietly through the door, crept across to the bed, felt Anil's breath warm on his hand, held still for a long moment — and then slid the notes back beneath the mattress. He withdrew his hand and lay back on the floor, heart pounding, waiting for morning. Imagery

In the morning, Hari woke late to find that Anil had already made the tea. Anil stretched out his hand toward him — between his fingers was a fifty-rupee note. Hari's heart sank immediately; he was certain he had been discovered. But Anil simply said he had earned some money the previous day and would now pay Hari regularly. Irony When Hari took the note, he saw it was still damp from the night's rain. Anil announced cheerfully: "Today we start writing sentences." He knew. His eyes showed nothing. His face showed nothing. And the smile that crossed Hari's face in that moment came not from calculation — but entirely by itself, from somewhere genuine. Symbolism