The Thief

      – Ruskin Bond

 About the Author and Text

Ruskin Bond
(born 1934) is a well-known Indian author of British descent. He was awarded
the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize for his first novel, The Room on the
Roof. Bond has published more than thirty books for children and over three
hundred short stories. His stories have been collected in popular titles such
as The Night Train at Deoli, Funny Side Up, and Ghost Stories from the Raj.
Some of his most well known novels are Vagrants in the Valley, A Flight of
Pigeons, The Blue Umbrella and Susanna’s Seven Husbands. (The last three have
been made into films.) In 1992, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for his
short story collection Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra. In 1999, he was awarded
the Padma Sri for his contribution to children’s literature, and in 2014, the
Padma Bhushan.

In this
story, the author portrays a thief’s transformation into an honest man. The
narrator of the story is the protagonist himself and one can see the change in
behaviour and growth in character. All it takes to change this man is a bit of
kindness by a complete stranger. Through subtlety and simplicity, Ruskin Bond
shows us how a man’s life can change in a very short period of time.

The Thief : Text

    I was
still a thief when I met Arun and though I was only fifteen, I was an
experienced and fairly successful hand. Arun was watching the wrestling match
when I approached him. He was about twenty, tall, lean fellow, and he looked
kind and simple enough for the purpose. I hadn’t had much luck of late and
thought I might be able to get into this young person’s confidence. He seemed
fascinated by wrestling. Two well-oiled men slid about in the soft mud,
grunting and slapping their thighs. When I drew Arun into conversation he
didn’t seem to realise I was a stranger.

‘You look
like a wrestler yourself,’ I said.

    ‘So do
you,’ he replied, which put me out of my stride for a moment because at the
time I was rather thin and bony and not very impressive physically.

‘Yes,” I
said. ‘I wrestle sometimes.’

‘What’s your
name?’ 

‘Deepak,’ I
lied.

Deepak was
about my fifth name. I had earlier called myself Ranbir, Sudhir, Trilok and
Surinder.

After this
preliminary exchange Arun confined himself to comments on the match, and I
didn’t have much to say. After a while he walked away from the crowd of
spectators. I followed him.

‘Hello’ he
said. ‘Enjoying yourself?

I gave him my
most appealing smile. I want to work for you’ I said.

He didn’t
stop walking. ‘And what makes you think I want someone to work for me?’

‘Well’ I
said, ‘I’ve been wandering about all day look best person to work for. When I
saw you I knew that no one else had a chance.

‘You flatter me,’ he
said. 

‘That’s all
right.’ 

‘But you
can’t work for me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I can’t pay you.’

I thought
that over for a minute. Perhaps I had misjudged my man.

‘Can you feed
me?’ I asked.

‘Can you
cook?’ he countered.

‘I can cook,’
I lied.

‘If you can
cook,’ he said, “I’ll feed you.’

He took me to
his room and told me I could sleep in the varanda. But I was nearly back
on the street that night. The meal I cooked must have been pretty awful because
Arun gave it to the neighbour’s cat and told me to be off. But I just hung
around smiling in my most appealing way and then he couldn’t help laughing. He
sat down on the bed and laughed for a full five minutes and later patted me on
the head and said, never mind, he’d teach me to cook in the morning.

Not only did
he teach me to cook but he taught me to write my name and his and said he would
soon teach me to write whole sentences and add money on paper when you didn’t
have any in your pocket!

It was quite
pleasant working for Arun. I made the tea in the morning and later went out
shopping. I would take my time buying the day’s supplies and make a profit of
about twenty five paise a day. I would tell Arun that rice was fifty-six paise
a pound (it generally was), but I would get it at fifty paise a pound. I think
he knew I made a little this way but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t giving me a
regular wage.

I was really
grateful to Arun for teaching me to write. I knew once I could write like an
educated man there would be no limit to what I could achieve. It might even be
an incentive to be honest.

Arun made
money by fits and starts. He would be borrowing week, lending the next. He
would keep worrying about his next cheque but as soon as it arrived he would go
out celebrate lavishly.

One evening
he came home with a wad of notes and at I saw him tuck the bundles under his
mattress at the head bed. I had been working for Arun for nearly a fortnight
and from the shopping hadn’t done much to exploit him. I had opportunity for
doing so. I had a key to the front door meant I had access to the room whenever
Arun was out. He the most trusting person I had ever met. And that was why
couldn’t make up my mind to rob him.

It’s easy to
rob a greedy man because he deserves to be robbed. It’s easy to rob a rich man
because he can afford to be robbed. But it’s difficult to rob a poor man, even
one who really doesn’t care if he’s robbed. A rich man or a greedy man or a
careful man wouldn’t keep his money under a pillow or mattress. He’d lock it up
in a safe place. Arun had put his money where it would be child’s play for me
to remove it without his knowledge. It’s time I did some real work, I told
myself. I’m getting out of practice….. If I don’t take the money, he’ll only
waste it on his friends…. He doesn’t even pay me….

Arun was
asleep. Moonlight came in from the veranda and fell across the bed. I sat up on
the floor, my blanket wrapped round me, considering the situation. There was
quite a lot of money in that wad and if I took it I would have to leave town—I
might make the 10.30 express to Amritsar….

Slipping out
of the blanket, I crept on all fours through the door and up to the bed and
peeped at Arun. He was sleeping peacefully with a soft and easy breathing. His
face was clear and unlined. Even I had more markings on my face, though mine
were mostly scars.

My hand took
on an identity of its own as it slid around under the mattress, the fingers
searching for the notes. They found them and I drew them out without a crackle.

Arun sighed
in his sleep and turned on his side, towards fingers. My free hand was resting
on the bed and his hair touched My fingers. 

I was
frightened when his hair touched my fingers, and crawled and quietly out of the
room. When I was in the street I began to run. I ran down the bazaar road to
the station. The shops were all closed but a few lights came from upper
windows. I had the notes in my waist, held there by the string of my pyjamas. I
felt I had to stop and count the notes though I knew it might make late for the
train. It was already 10.20 by the clock tower. I slowed down to a walk and my
fingers flicked through the notes. There were about a hundred rupees in fives.
A good haul. I could live like a prince for a month or two.

When I
reached the station I did not stop at the ticket office (I had never bought a
ticket in my life) but dashed straight onto the platform. The Amritsar Express
was just moving out. It was moving slowly enough for me to be able to jump on
the footboard of one of the carriages but I hesitated for some urgent,
unexplainable reason.

I hesitated
long enough for the train to leave without me. When it had gone and the noise
and busy confusion of the platform had subsided, I found myself standing alone
on the deserted platform. The knowledge that I had a hundred stolen rupees in
my pyjamas only increased my feeling of isolation and loneliness. I had no idea
where to spend the night.

I had never
kept any friends because sometimes friends can be one’s undoing. I didn’t want
to make myself conspicuous by staying at a hotel. And the only person I knew
really well in town was the person I had robbed!

Leaving the
station, I walked slowly through the bazaar keeping to dark, deserted alleys. I
kept thinking of Arun. He would still be asleep, blissfully unaware of his
loss.

I have made a
study of men’s faces when they have lost something of material value. The
greedy man shows panic, the rich man shows anger, the poor man shows fear. But
I knew that panic nor anger nor fear would show on Arun’s face when discovered
the theft; only a terrible sadness not for the loss of money but for my having
betrayed his trust.

I found
myself on the maidan and sat down on a bench with my feet
tucked up under my haunches. The night was a little cold and I regretted not
having brought Arun’s blanket along. A light drizzle added to my discomfort.
Soon it was raining heavily. My shirt and pyjamas stuck to my
skin and a cold wind brought the rain whipping across my face. I told myself
that sle bench was something I should have been used to by veranda had softened
me.

I walked back
to the bazaar and sat down on the closed shop. A few vagrants lay beside me,
rolled up tight in thin blankets. The clock showed midnight. I felt for the
notes. They were still with me but had lost their crispness and were damn
rainwater.

Arun’s money.
In the morning he would probably have given me a rupee to go to the pictures
but now I had it all. No mo cooking his meals, running to the bazaar, or
learning to write whole sentences. Whole sentences….

They were
something I had forgotten in the excitement of a hundred rupees. Whole
sentences, I knew, could one day bring me more than a hundred rupees. It was a
simple matter to steal (and sometimes just as simple to be caught) but to be a
really big man, a wise and successful man, that was something. I should go back
to Arun, I told myself, if only to learn how to write.

Perhaps it
was also concern for Arun that drew me back. A sense of sympathy is one of my
weaknesses, and through hesitation over a theft I had often been caught. A
successful thief must be pitiless. I was fond of Arun. My affection for him, my
sense of sympathy, but most of all my desire to write whole sentences drew me
back to the room.

I hurried
back to the room extremely nervous, for it is to steal something than to return
it undetected. If I was beside the bed now, with the money in my hand, or with
m under the mattress, there could be only one explanation: was actually
stealing. If Arun woke up I would be lost.

I opened the
door clumsily, then stood in the doo clouded moonlight. Gradually my eyes
became accustomed to the darkness of the room. Arun was still asleep. I we
fours again and crept noiselessly to the head of the hand came up with the
notes. I felt his breath on my fingers. I was fascinated by his tranquil
features and easy breathing and motionless for a minute. Then my hand explored
the mattress, found the edge, slipped under it with the notes.

I awoke late
next morning to find that Arun had already made the tea. I found it difficult
to face him in the harsh light of day. His hand was stretched out towards
me. There was a five-rupee note between his fingers. My heart sank.

‘I made some
money yesterday’ he said. “Now you’ll get paid regularly’. My spirit rose as
rapidly as it had fallen. I congratulated myself on having returned the money.

But when I
took the note, I realised that he knew everything. The note was still wet from
last night’s rain.

‘Today I’ll
teach you to write a little more than your name,’ he said.

He knew but
neither his lips nor his eyes said anything about their knowing. 

I smiled at
Arun in my most appealing way. And the smile came by itself, without my knowing
it.