Wrote this while in college, and remember my mother typing it out for me for my college mag. Fished it out, and while reading it, find that nothing’s changed:
He was being chased by a mob.
He jumped from platform three to platform four just as a train came in, and sat next to me on the station bench, pretending he was just another passenger, “Thief! Thief!” I heard them shout from across the rails.
“Sir please save me,” said the exhausted pickpocket as he panted next to me. “Save me from those thieves and robbers!”
“Thieves and robbers!” I exclaimed, “You are the pickpocket, not they!”
“I pick only pockets but they pick people’s lives!”
The train was moving away as the pickpocket turned to me, “Do you see that fat woman shouting from across the tracks?”
“Isn’t it her money you have stolen?”
“I’ve only robbed stolen money! She makes and sells hot batata vadas outside the station!”
“Very tasty stuff!” I said.
“Made with engine oil!” said the pickpocket, “Drained from cars and scooters parked in the station compound, full of metal and lead! That is what she fries her vadas in!”
“My God!” I exclaimed.
“I pick people’s pockets,” said the pickpockets, “She picks out their lives. Can you see that man standing next to her?”
“The tall chap with the beard?”
“That’s the local moneylender! He lends money to the poor at over two hundred percent interest. Today is payday; I picked into his briefcase while he picks from the very mouths of the poor, whose families will go hungry tonight after paying off just his interest.”
“The railway policeman is coming our way,” I whispered.
“He won’t bother us, he will pick up half my earnings later, see he is smiling at me!”
“Are there only rogues and robbers around here?” I whispered, then watched as an old lady slipped and was helped up by a middle- aged man. “Looks like the helpful type,” I said appreciatively.
“Watch him as he moves away, look what he does with his hands very quickly! Can you see him touching and brushing past that young girl? He is here at the station everyday doing the same thing.”
“But he does not pick pockets!” I said stubbornly.
“No, he only picks the flesh of girls and young working women!”
The mob had jumped across the railway lines and came to me, “Have you seen a man running this way? A pickpocket?”
“Yes!” I said and felt the pickpocket stiffening next to me, “But there are lots of them around and I don’t know which of them you are looking for!”
The mob walked away, and soon the pickpocket slithered off. I checked my pocket; my wallet was still there..!

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