"A thief is a thief, whether he steals a cucumber or a diamond .”

Theft is a big profession in the world. From small level servants to big level people, can work under this profession. They earn a lot of tax-free money. I met lots of thieves in a different stages of my life. To take any object without the knowledge of the owner of the object is a theft. Every thief has his own reasons to do a theft.  

I  was a child when I met a thief who used to take away children. That day, I was with my Aunt. We went to the dentist for some dental work. After that, we went to a medical shop. As I remember, I was just standing outside of the shop. My aunt was in the shop. A woman having one small child in hand came to me. She said “Come, I will give you chocolate” and she held my hand and started pulling me with her. I was so dumb that I had started walking with her silently. My aunt came back from the shop and to her surprise, I was not there on road. When she saw both sides of the road, she noticed that I was going with a lady with a child in hand. She ran fast towards me and snatched me from that lady. The lady ran away fast in the mob. But I was relieved from her and my aunt was relaxed. Today, I think if my aunt would not have noticed me, I would have been somewhere begging with a handicapped leg or hand. But that day, I just did not know what had happened to me as I was going home happily with my aunt.

Again during my childhood, a neighbor friend of my elder sister used to come to our home to play with my sister. She was so friendly with everybody that nobody had any doubt about her. One day my mom, big mom, and my sister also found that some of the jewelry was not in place. They started querying each other and understood that a lot of things were missing in the home. After some time, my sister observed that her friend was having her hair banded by a beautiful Clip that belonged to my sister and was missing from the morning. She told to everybody at home. My big mom went to her home and queried about the clip. But looking at big mom in the home, she suddenly started running outside and we understood that it was theft by her.  Then, my father and some other neighbor came and after threatening that police would be called, she accepted that she did the theft at night. Then my father and all started searching her home and found that they had hidden a lot of things in different places. We got all the things back. But after that, we suffered from one rule that no friend would be allowed in the home. We could play with them outside the house. 

After few years, I had completed my graduation. My sister also got married to my advocate brother-in-law. I had a plan to go to her town first time after her marriage. I cached a bus in the night. I am comfortable in the journey only at night. I reached her home morning at 5 o’clock. She had told me to get down at the professor colony stop. I had informed the conductor of the bus to indicate me when stop comes.  Such hints only attract thieves towards you as a prey. 

This hint, I had already given. At the stop, I got down from the bus. Along with me, one more mid-age fellow got down from the bus. There was nobody on road. As I did not know this place, I was confused about where to go. I asked the person who got down with me about the address. He told me to follow him. I started walking with him.  We were just going towards a lonely road. But all of a sudden a patrolling police bike stopped near us.   

The inspector on the bike started asking where we were going. I told the name of my brother-in-law. Thanks to his profession, the inspector knew him. Next to that what inspector said to me, I was stupefied for 2minutes.  He said “Do you know with whom you are currently roaming here? Professor colony is on the opposite side. This person is a very well-known criminal from this area and was run out to Mumbai as he was in the most wanted list of this area.”  I thanked him. He only dropped me at my sister’s home on a police bike. Police vehicle also had come to arrest the person with me.

Now, I had started my first job. We were three roommates - Myself, Arun, and Kunal. Kunal was my uncle’s friend’s son. It was Thursday. That day, Arun was at the office. I had a holiday as my weekly off was on Thursday.  Kunal was a student and was in college. 

All of a sudden 15-16 boys came into our room and started searching for something in our room. I did not know anybody of them. I just stopped them and asked “who you are? And what you are doing in our room?” One of them replied, “Where is Kunal? He has stolen our lot of things including my cycle & my friend’s mobile.” I was stunned by this. I said “No No…you have misunderstood something.  He can’t do that. He has got mobile and cycle from his brother” They all laughed sarcastically. But I ignored all that as I was in a reverse replay of some incidents in my mind which I clearly remembered. Kunal used to park his cycle somewhere else and told us that here it is not safe so he is parking at his friend's place. Also, he had told us that he got a mobile from his brother as a gift. One day, we all three were chit-chatting in the room.  Kunal had kept his mobile on the bed. Suddenly two of his friends came to meet him. Instantly, Kunal placed a shawl on mobile. I had observed it but ignored it as I could not get facts of the situation.  After reviewing these incidents, I understood, his friends were talking truthfully. But still, I told his friends, “see Kunal is not here. In his absence, you just cannot do search our room like this. I promise you once he comes back I will personally call you.” I don’t know the reason, but normally people believe me very soon. They agreed and went back.  After some time, Kunal came back to the room. I immediately went to S.T.D. booth and called his friend. Also, I informed Arun about the incident. He also had agreed to help his friends. I came back to the room and asked him about the stolen things. He seemed to be stressed. He still said no, his brother had given him these gifts. He had got wet by sweat. I understood that he was lying. But by then, his friends came back. They searched his mobile from his pocket and one of them confirmed that it was his mobile. To which, Kunal said, “no, no it's mine.” Now they had become aggressive and asked about the cycle also. But he refused to tell anything. I interrupted and told Kunal to tell the truth. Nobody would do anything to him if he gave back their things. But he refused. His friends took him to the police station. At the police station, in just one slap by a police constable, he agreed that he had stolen the things.  Now he got ready to give back things. Once things were given back, his friends had taken back the complaint. They were good-hearted and generous. After the incident, Arun told Kunal to leave the room as soon as possible.

 I used to go to my job by bus. Many times, I was needed to wait a long time for the bus. As it was a daily routine, some people were regular at that bus stop. One such person whom I daily used to observe was a thief. I used to observe him daily there at the bus stop. Every bus coming to the stop, he used to pretend to try to climb with the crowd on the bus. But actually, he never used to climb. Then I started to observe him more closely. I noticed that he was folding his hands while climbing in the crowd and slowly used to put one hand in the pockets of the person in the hurry of climbing in the bus and pick up his money or wallet. I have even observed that once the bus moved ahead, the person whose wallet was stolen, tried to look out from the bus door or sometimes shouted also but the bus did not stop. And here the thief who had stolen the wallet used to count money from it. As I was also a daily person on the stop, he was aware that I knew him by then. After success, he used to give me a gimmick smile. Sometimes I had even seen him getting caught by people. Then he used to behave like deaf and dumb. After beating by people he used to run away. For such small theft, nobody called the police. But next day again he would be there on duty for his next target.  As I am aware of this process, till now, I get on the bus by putting my hands on my wallet.

Like this, thieves are always come on my way but I never got harmed by them. I read somewhere “A thief is a thief, whether he steals a cucumber or a diamond.”