The Thief's Story

Hari Singh is the narrator and protagonist — a fifteen-year-old thief. He is not honest about even his name: “Hari Singh” is just the name he is using for this particular month. He keeps changing his name — and moving from place to place — so that the police cannot track him and his previous victims cannot recognise him. This is the habit of an experienced thief who has made deception a way of life. The changing name also symbolises his lack of a stable, honest identity — something he begins to build only when he decides to return Anil's money and continue his education.

Hari Singh cooks for Anil and does the daily shopping. He is not a good cook initially; Anil teaches him without scolding — he simply laughs and shows him how. Anil also teaches Hari to read and write words, and to add numbers, all without being asked and without demanding payment. He provides food and shelter, and probably knows Hari cheats at the market but says nothing. This generosity and non-judgmental trust mark Anil as an unusually kind employer and, ultimately, a life-changing figure for Hari.

When Anil comes home one evening with 600 rupees — money received for a book — and tucks it under the mattress, Hari sees the chance he has been waiting for. Around midnight, after making sure Anil is asleep, Hari carefully slides the bundle of notes out from under the mattress. He feels no guilt at this moment — old habit and his original plan take over. He pockets the 600 rupees, slips quietly out of the room, and walks through the dark city streets heading toward the railway station to catch the Lucknow Express and disappear.

At the railway station, Hari sits with the stolen notes in hand, ready to board the Lucknow Express. But he cannot make himself get on the train. He is flooded with unexpected thoughts: Anil's easy laughter, the reading lessons, the vision of becoming a literate, respected person. He realises that if he runs, he will always be an uneducated thief with no real future. The rain falls; the notes get wet. After a long inner battle, Hari makes the decision to return. He walks back to Anil's room before dawn and replaces the money under the mattress. This is the story's moral turning point — Hari chooses education and a future over 600 rupees.

The morning after Hari returns the money, Anil behaves with complete normalcy. He does not confront Hari, does not mention the money, and does not seem angry. Instead, he gives Hari a fifty-rupee note and says he will now be paid regularly. He also promises to teach Hari to write whole sentences. The fifty-rupee note is crisp and new — not one of the wet notes from under the mattress — which strongly suggests Anil knew what had happened. His response is not anger or punishment but a fresh start: regular pay and more learning. This shows Anil's extraordinary moral maturity — he responds to weakness with trust, not judgment.

Education is the central force of moral change. It is not money, fear, or the law that stops Hari from running — it is the thought that he is learning to read and write, and that this is the start of a better life. He realises he could get a real job, earn an honest living, and live as a person with a real name and a real future. Literacy represents dignity and possibility. The 600 rupees offered only a temporary escape; education offers permanence and a new identity. Anil teaching Hari to read is the greatest gift in the story — greater than food, shelter, or even the fifty-rupee note. Bond's message is clear: education can transform a person where punishment cannot.

Hari Singh is a skilled judge of people — it is part of his profession. When he meets Anil at the wrestling match, he quickly assesses him: young (about 25), educated but not rich, easy-going, and trusting. He notices Anil has a “careless” and “appealing” manner. Hari's initial intention is entirely selfish: he attaches himself to Anil as a servant solely to steal from him when the opportunity arises. He sees Anil as a convenient target, not as a person deserving respect. This cold, calculating approach is gradually undone by Anil's unexpected kindness.

This line reveals two important truths. First, Anil is perceptive — he is not the naive fool Hari initially took him for. He knows about Hari's small cheating at the market. Second, he deliberately chooses to do nothing about it. This is not weakness but a conscious moral choice — to continue trusting Hari, to give him time and space to grow. Anil's trust is not blind; it is conscious and patient. This quiet tolerance is precisely what makes Hari feel the weight of his own dishonesty and makes it impossible for him to betray Anil completely. The line also reveals that Hari himself knows Anil knows — deepening his unease.

Rain is used symbolically at the crisis point of the story. When Hari stands outside the station, it begins to rain. He stands in the rain, getting wet — and the stolen notes in his hand get wet too, turning limp and damaged. The rain has a cleansing, clarifying quality: it strips away the thrill of the theft and leaves Hari alone with his conscience. The wet notes symbolise the corruption and moral worthlessness of stolen money — they literally lose their value. The discomfort of standing in the rain mirrors the internal discomfort of his moral struggle. Rain, in literature, often signals change or purification — here it marks the moment before Hari's transformation.

Hari Singh is young, street-smart, experienced in deception, and morally adrift at the start. He lives by his wits, changes his name monthly, and sees people as targets. However, he is intelligent and sensitive — he responds to kindness, and his conscience is not dead but suppressed. Anil, by contrast, is educated, generous, easy-going, and morally grounded. He earns irregularly but shares what he has; he teaches not because he is asked but because he believes in it. Both characters are perceptive — Anil knows about the market cheating; Hari knows Anil knows. The difference is what they do with that perception: Hari uses it to exploit; Anil uses it to understand and forgive. This contrast is at the heart of the story.

The passage creates a mood of tension, stealth, and a strange loneliness. The darkness, the cold wind, and the empty road suggest moral isolation — Hari is alone with his choice and with the stolen money. The detail of hearing Anil's breathing shows how acutely aware Hari is of Anil even at the moment of betrayal — Anil is not just a victim but a presence in Hari's conscience. The precise, quiet actions (the latch, the cold wind) are written in the manner of a practiced thief, but the very precision also reveals discomfort — there is a tightness in the prose that mirrors Hari's inner conflict. The passage marks the moment just before his conscience fully wakes up.

The crisp, new fifty-rupee note is one of the most telling details in the story. The notes that were under the mattress would have been wet (Hari had taken them into the rain); but the note Anil gives is new and dry. This strongly implies Anil knew the money had been taken and returned. He could have confronted Hari — accused him, dismissed him, or handed him to the police. Instead, he gives him a fresh note and a fresh promise (regular pay and more lessons). This tells us that Anil's kindness is not accidental or naive — it is deliberate and principled. He chooses to respond to Hari's moral struggle with encouragement, not punishment. This final act of trust completes Hari's transformation.

The story suggests that genuine human connection — especially one built on trust, patience, and generosity — is the most powerful agent of reform. Hari has lived a life of isolation, using different names and moving constantly, treating every person as a target. The relationship with Anil is fundamentally different: for perhaps the first time, Hari is in a relationship where the other person gives without calculation and trusts without conditions. This experience of being genuinely cared for awakens Hari's dormant conscience. He does not change because of a law or a punishment but because he has been shown what a different kind of life feels like — and he finds he wants it. The story is a quiet argument for the reforming power of friendship and human dignity.

The ending is quietly but powerfully optimistic. Hari has returned the money; Anil responds not with confrontation but with a fresh fifty-rupee note and a promise of continued teaching. Hari's face has “a little happiness” — the happiness of a person who has done the right thing for the first time. Anil's words — that he will now teach Hari to write whole sentences — point forward: the education will continue, the relationship of trust is intact, and Hari's future is still open. Bond ends on this understated but powerful note of human possibility. The reader is left feeling that Hari will not be a thief much longer — that education and kindness together have turned a corner in his life.

Hari calls Anil the most trusting person he has ever met because Anil never locks his money, never suspects Hari openly, knows about the market cheating and says nothing, and — most powerfully — does not confront Hari even after the 600 rupees are taken and returned. This is absolute, conscious trust. Hari is experienced at working around caution and suspicion — those are familiar defences he can defeat. But absolute trust is something he has never encountered, and he does not know how to steal from someone who trusts completely. Anil's trust follows Hari to the railway station like a conscience made visible — it makes the stolen notes feel worthless and pulls him back before morning. Trust, in this story, is more powerful than any lock, law, or punishment.

Hari's plan is technically flawless — he steals 600 rupees while Anil sleeps and heads to the railway station without being detected. But it goes wrong at the level of conscience. At the station, he is unable to board the train. His internal conflict reveals that beneath the surface of a habitual thief there is a person of sensitivity and moral awareness. He is not merely calculating profit and risk — he is asking “who am I becoming?” The conflict reveals his intelligence (he understands exactly what he is giving up), his emotional depth (he feels Anil's trust like a weight), and his capacity for genuine growth. The fact that he is even having this conflict shows that Anil's kindness has already changed him. A person truly without conscience would simply have boarded the train.

Education in this story is not merely literacy — it is liberation and a new identity. Anil teaches Hari to read words, write, and add numbers. In Hari's mind at the railway station, these lessons translate into a vision: if he can read and write, he can go to an office, get a real job, earn honest money, and live as a person with a real name and a real future. The 600 rupees, on the other hand, would buy him a few weeks of easy living and then require him to find another victim, use another name, and keep running indefinitely. Education offers permanence; the stolen money offers only temporary escape. The choice Hari makes — to return the money and keep learning — shows he has understood this. Bond's story argues powerfully that education is the most transformative gift one person can give another.

Anil is about 25, easy-going, generous, and morally perceptive. He earns irregularly as a writer but shares whatever he has without complaint. He teaches Hari to cook, read, write, and add — asking for nothing in return, not even proper wages. He is different from all of Hari's previous employers in one crucial way: he trusts completely and consciously. He probably knows Hari cheats at the market, and he knows (after the event) that Hari took 600 rupees — but he responds to both with patience and a fresh chance. He does not humiliate, lecture, or punish. This non-judgmental generosity makes Anil impossible to steal from in the deepest sense — because he has already given Hari something more valuable than money. Anil represents the best of human nature: quiet, consistent goodness that asks for nothing and changes everything.

The title creates the expectation of a story about crime, cunning, and perhaps dramatic arrest or confrontation. Instead, Bond gives us something entirely different. The thief does not succeed at his crime — he returns the money himself. There is no police chase, no dramatic exposure. The only confrontation is internal — between the old Hari and the emerging Hari. The irony deepens: the most honest, principled, and morally serious person in the story is the thief himself. He is the one who wrestles most deeply with right and wrong; the world around him is largely indifferent. Bond subverts the genre to turn a story about a criminal into a story about conscience, trust, and moral growth. By the end, the reader is not sure the word “thief” still applies to Hari at all — which is precisely Bond's point.