It was an early afternoon when I met Pankaj; a lean man with tall height and pleasing smile. I had not seen a man like him for quite some time now. He appeared as an easy going, “gettable” type of a person. I would like to mention that I’m a thief, a mere fifteen year old, yet experienced thief. I don’t let anything go out of my hand, especially when I like it; but what I like the most is the look on the faces of people when they discover when they’ve been robbed; I love it.
Coming back, I was to Pankaj, I was sitting in a random park after stealing five toffees from a kiraana store and that’s when I came across a man who put his hand on my shoulder and asked me my name.
“hey young boy! What’s your name? where are you from?”
“Ram Nath; Ratlaam” I lied
“What do you do?”
“Nothing” I replied casually
“Would you come and stay with me?”
“Yeah. Why not?!” I saw him as another customer to steal money and other things from.
Pankaj took me to his home; it was a very simple, nearly empty and undecorated room, with pale and damp walls with slight cracks all over. The house had 3 rooms, quite big and with a kitchen with very few utensils and almost no ration. It didn’t affect me much as my plan was to steal as much as I could and run away from there. Pankaj was a security guard in a nearby bank but was unemployed due to the bank going bankrupt; he was unemployed. He would everyday go out on search for a job and return empty handed. I was in-charge of doing the household work, making tea in the morning and odd chores such as shopping for the kitchen materials. He left me alone on my own giving me the charge of the house with a trust on me. I had met him a week ago in a random park, yet he trusted me. I didn’t care. I was there was just one purpose; stealing.
He was about thirty years old, unmarried and used to stay alone. He would come back from the job hunting and teach me every day. He taught me to write my name and count and write alphabets in hindi. He was a trustworthy and a pure hearted man, simple and naïve.
One day I saw him with a several notes of hundred rupees in hand, I was amazed to see as how come he has all the money without any job. I dared not to ask him and made a plan to steal all the money the very night and run away. I noticed him keeping it below his pillow that night while sleeping. I waited for him to sleep for about him to sleep and when started to snore I quickly went up to him and my hand slid under his pillow to take out the money; I was successful in my task. I counted they were ten new notes of rupees hundred. I quickly opened the door to go out of the house; I ran to nearest bus stop and waited for the next bus to come. I didn’t plan to go anywhere, just hoped to go as far as I could from Pankaj.
As I was waiting for the bus, I lied down on the big bus stop and started thinking. I remembered Pankaj’s innocent face and all the lessons that he had taught me, I just seemed to forget them. Pankaj was a kind of person for whom losing that amount of money would not matter more than losing the trust on someone. I have observed quite a few people after being robbed; the rich cries, the greedy becomes angry, the poor brakes down, but Pankaj was not one of these; he would lose his trust and it would be cheating to him. By now I had understood what I had done and I quickly stood up to run back to the house. Suddenly, it started raining and the notes were now wet because of it. somehow I managed to get back, quietly closed the door and kept the money back under the pillow. I felt Pankaj moving, he turned towards me, still asleep. I quickly went to sleep without making any noise.
Next morning as I woke up I saw Pankaj making the tea, I woke up quickly; as he noticed me waking up, he came up to me and gave me a hundred rupee note and said “From now on you’ll be paid regularly as I have a got a new job now” he smiled. I felt the note was still a little cold from last night’s rain. He knew I flew out with the money and came back; But I didn’t see any sign of anger or revenge in his eyes. He remained quiet and normal. He smiled at me and went out in the balcony.
