THE THIEF'S STORY PART-3

THE THIEF'S STORY

 PART-3

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 to the platform. The Lucknow Express was just moving out. The train had still to pick up speed and I should have been able to jump into one of the carriages, but I hesitated-for  some reason I can’t explain- and I lost the chance to get away.

When the train had gone, I found myself standing alone on the deserted platform. I had no idea where to spend the night. I had no friends, beliving that friends were more trouble than help, and I did not want to make anyone curious by staying at one of the small hotels near the station. The only person I knew really well was the man I had robbed. Leaving the station, I walked  slowly through the bazaar.

In my short career as a thief, I had made a study of men’s faces when they had lost their goods. The greedy man showed fear; the rich man showed anger; the poor man showed acceptance. But I knew that  Anil’s face, when he discovered the theft, would show only a touch of sadness. Not for the loss of money but for the loss of trust

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I found myself in the maidan and sat down on a bench. The night was chilly—it was early November—and a light drizzle added to my discomfort. Soon it was raining quite heavily. My shirt and pyjamas stuck to my skin and a cold wind blew the rain across my face.

I went back to the bazaar and sat down in the shelter of the clock tower. The clock showed midnight. I felt for the notes. They were damp from the rain.

Anil’s money. In the morning he would probably have given me two or three rupees to go to the cinema, but now I had it all. I couldn’t cook his meals, run to the bazaar or learn to write whole sentences any more.

I had forgotten about them in the excitement of the theft. Whole sentences, I know, could one day bring me more than a few 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 clever and respected man, was something else. I should go back to Anil, I told myself, if only to learn to read and write.