The Delhi Thug
By Kulpreet Yadav


Rohan liked watching people smudging the sidewalks on a busy afternoon in the city, some with hope in their eyes, some empty. He would stand with a smile on his thirty-year-old face, eyes half closed, letting his senses filter each person. The targets were chosen carefully, and he never failed. It was on one such afternoon he came across her. The excess of dress she was wearing for the afternoon, the wide-eyed wondrous look of a new person in the city, and the unnecessary “excuse me” each time he saw her bump into someone across from where he stood were like a treat for his senses. Behind the spectacles, the Delhi thug’s smile gave him the face of a friendly stranger – someone you could trust.

“What took you so long?” he asked his just arrived partner, Sheila, without any change in his expression. She didn’t reply, instead adjusted the one-year-old hired toddler in her arms and homed onto their target in less than five seconds, watching her walk across the road along the zebra crossing. Both turned slowly, the con family without any link between them except business, and saw her enter a large bookstore. Their strategy was simple: Rohan was the one who did all the talking, while Sheila stood nearby to show the baby wailing in her arms as she kept pinching him. It was a foolproof plan and in seven long years it never failed. Nobody ever informed the police as the money they managed to fleece was too trivial. And in any case, the strangers who came to Delhi had far better things to do in the capital city in the limited time they could stay.       

Today looked like an easy day, Rohan thought. He could find all he wanted to know in less than half an hour. The stranger was from a small town and in exactly two hours she would launch her book at the tea shop in the bookstore. A couple of people sat with her and he heard them discuss the event as he pretended to browse through the books on a shelf close to them. Then he slipped out of the door and out of sight where his partner waited, the baby dead quiet in her arms. She thrust the baby towards him. “What is this?” Rohan was annoyed. “This is your part of the job.” Sheila smiled, laughed, and declared loudly that she needed to go to the toilet and walked away without waiting for him to react.

He felt the baby’s stare as he looked around. He looked down and was surprised to see that the child had very big eyes, like that of an adult. It was difficult to look into them and Rohan had to quickly look away. Then he felt the body turn lighter in his arms until he thought he was only holding a shadow. He looked down and the eyes stared at him fixedly, but now there was a smile that curled the side of the lips, one side of which had saliva dripping from it. The contrast was scary – the sadness in the eyes didn’t match the smile. He was scared wondering what it meant but quickly brushed the thought away.

Sheila took an hour to get back and when she did he noticed the bruises on her face and neck. “You could have told him this is not a good time,” he said angrily. She took the child and sat down next to him. He repeated his comment. This time Sheila’s reply quieted him for a long time. She hissed, through betel nut-stained, rust-colored teeth, “He is my lover and he rarely asks. You don’t have to tell me when to fuck.”

They saw the target walk through the glass doors, look in their direction, and go away looking confused. Both knew she was looking for the restroom and would find it at the end of the corridor. But they stared at her blankly, the child suddenly crying, reacting to the pinch. Minutes later when she was on her way back, Sheila was holding her face in her palms, sobbing, while the child was still wailing and Rohan looked at their target, his face sullen, eyes big with fear, hair disheveled. He saw her hesitate in front of them for a second before walking away. He knew it was time.

After five minutes he was standing behind her. She was alone browsing through the books, while others busied themselves making the final arrangements for the event. He knew the format. The bookstore had been a favorite haunt. He turned the final time to see if Shelia and their unhealthy child were where he could show them to her. They were.

“Excuse me, madam.” He was happy to hear the practiced tremble in his voice. She turned and the expression was just as he had expected.
photo: James

“Yes?”

A tear rolled from Rohan’s eye when he narrated his story. He said that their child needed immediate medical tests which cost three thousand rupees and he didn’t have a penny. He showed her the fake medical prescription with the day’s date (he had a big bunch of such undated blank prescriptions at home that he filled himself whenever required, like today). He saw the uncertainty in her eyes, the first reaction he was expecting. He continued, his finger pointed towards his fake family. “We stay in this heartless city madam, I don’t want the entire money, just give me whatever you can.” She was looking at the child. Rohan knew his little con game was headed in the right direction.

“I will return your money in a month’s time. Here is my card.” He handed her a fake card.
She had tears in her eyes when she gave him two thousand rupees. He smiled, bowed, and cried some more, before thanking her profusely and vanishing through the glass doors.

By now many people had gathered and she was asked to sit on the chair facing them. As she sat down in front of fifty close friends and people from the media to read from her second book, everyone, except her, noticed the police take a struggling family in handcuffs through the glass wall behind her. She didn’t need to see them as she herself had planned the arrest after being conned by the same thugs two years prior when she was in the city for her maiden book launch. There was a roar of clapping when she finished her reading. It certainly looked like this book would do much better than her previous one. She was getting better at telling stories, not plain listening to them.







Kulpreet Yadav is an Indian novelist and short story writer with an interest in poetry, photography, and food and wine tasting. His work has appeared in many literary magazines and periodicals including Sonora Review, Monkeybycycle, Leaning House Press, Muse India, Hindustan Times, New Indian Express, About.com, and Sommelier India. He works for the Government of India and is currently stationed at Port Blair. Yadav's maiden novel, The Bet, was published in 2006 by Frog Books, Mumbai. He can be contacted at kulpreetyadav@gmail.com.