Telugu original: Anuganti Venugopal
Translated by Rajeshwar Mittapalli

It was late at night, yet it had not even gone past ten.

Darkness lay everywhere. People hurried about in their own flurry, absorbed in their own affairs. No one was in a state to bother about what went on right beside them. The whole area felt hectic and restless—busy, busy.

Trees stood on either side of the road with bare, gaunt faces. They blocked the light from the street lamps and seemed to draw a bit of warmth from it against the cold.

Ranjit Kumar crossed Shiva Street at a trot that bordered on panic and somehow reached the Rambazar main road.

Once he felt sure that he had come a good distance, he stopped by the roadside and stood under a street light. Anyone who had gone close to him and taken a proper look would have noticed the anxiety on his face and the tremor in his chest at once.

There were not many people about in that part of town. It felt almost deserted.

He stayed there like that for about ten minutes. When his mind finally told him that he had calmed down a little, he began to wonder which direction he ought to take. He watched a few vehicles pass by and raised his hand to ask one or two riders for a lift. No one stopped.

The third time, he stuck his right arm out firmly in front of a motorbike and shouted, “Lift!”

The Pulsar screeched to a halt. The rider, Vasudeva Rao, turned back.

As soon as Ranjit came near the bike, the rider said, “I’ll give you a lift. But there is one small condition!” He laid down the term with a hint of playfulness.

Ranjit nodded. “Alright, tell me.”

“Actually, in this cold night, I am heading to a bar for a couple of pegs. It feels warmer that way. Drinking on my own doesn’t give me any proper kick. If you keep me company, I won’t mind giving you a lift. Okay?”

Ranjit hesitated for a moment. Suspicion flickered in his eyes.

Vasudeva Rao noticed it immediately.

“The bill is on me. Don’t worry!” he said with a laugh.

Ranjit’s doubts crumbled. Free pegs and a lift on top of that—what more do I need?

With not a trace of reluctance he said, “Done!” and climbed onto the back of the bike, almost cheerful now.

The bike shot forward like a horse let loose. They crossed the outskirts of Jagtial and reached the Karimnagar road, where Vasudeva Rao parked in front of the Village Restaurant. The two of them walked into the bar.

Vasudeva Rao ordered the brand he liked and asked for boiled groundnuts.

Before the waiter returned with the drinks, they had exchanged names and a few basic details.

Until two pegs went down, their glasses alone made any sound between them. Silence did the talking. As he mixed soda into the third peg, Vasudeva Rao finally moved his lips.

“You haven’t told me where you are coming from at this hour,” he said.

Ranjit responded with a slight smile.

“If I tell you, you won’t believe it,” he said, dropping a few groundnuts into his mouth and chewing slowly.

“Say it. I’ll definitely believe you.”

“I am a thief,” he announced at once, tossing the bomb, and then stared closely at Vasudeva Rao’s face, eager to catch his reaction.

Vasudeva Rao raised his glass and took a slow sip. When he put it back on the table, he said, “I don’t believe you,” and his face did not betray a single ripple of emotion, just as Ranjit had not expected.

“I told you beforehand that you wouldn’t believe me,” Ranjit replied.

He slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and drew out a gold chain that must have weighed around six tolas.

“Wow! Did you nick that just now?” Vasudeva Rao sounded delighted, like an excited child, though his thick moustache gave him a stern look.

Ranjit pushed the chain back into his pocket. They say if you admit your sin, it will be atoned, he thought with a little glow of pride and gave a small nod, as if to say yes.

Then a doubt jabbed at him. Ranjit suddenly leaned forward.

“You won’t tell anyone, will you? About this,” he asked, his voice uncertain.

“What business do I have with it? We met by chance. After a while we shall go our own ways. That’s all. Even if the police themselves ask me, I won’t leak it,” Vasudeva Rao said, reassuring him.

Ranjit let out a long breath of relief and emptied half his glass in one big gulp.

Vasudeva Rao watched his speed with a kind of amused surprise.

“I am mad about ghost stories and theft stories. If you tell me one, it passes the time nicely as well,” he said, nudging him.

“I have no objection. But I have one small condition of my own.” Ranjit placed his wager in the same manner as Vasudeva Rao had done earlier.

“Whatever the condition, it is okay with me,” Vasudeva Rao agreed at once.

“Next time whenever we meet, or if I ring you up and we fix a time and place, that time I shall host the drink.”

“That is all? Sure!” Vasudeva Rao said without hesitation.

Once he said that, Ranjit asked for his phone number and saved it.

He then began to narrate his heroic little tale of theft to Vasudeva Rao, packing it with as much suspense as he could.

The mansion stood at the far end of Shiva Street, almost as though someone had flung it there last. At that time of night, the owner of the house usually remained at his company for business reasons. Ranjit had already watched the place for a full week and found this out.

He always drew his sketch around houses where there was not much human movement. Once he picked the day for the job, he slipped into the house.

The woman inside, Vanaja, was alone. He walked straight up to her without any hesitation and threatened her with a knife. She had been engrossed in watching television, and his sudden appearance made her jump up to her feet.

For a moment she froze at the sight of the intruder. Then, in the next instant, she gathered her courage.

“If you hand over that chain without making a fuss, my work will become simple. There will be no risk to your life. You won’t end up with any injuries either,” he said, his voice harsh.

“You think this is your father’s property? This chain came from our hard-earned savings,” she said, forcing her voice to rise.

Ranjit shifted the knife from his right hand into his left.

With his right hand he gave a sharp tug at the chain around Vanaja’s neck. She refused to let go of him. She watched that chain and her heart would not accept the idea of losing something so precious in front of her eyes.

She grabbed his hand and sank her teeth into it with all her strength. He howled and struggled, twisting and wrenching himself about. At last, he wriggled free with a quick move of cunning.

He fled from there with the chain and bolted out of the house.

“After I ran a long way, I bumped into you,” he said, finishing his account, and then drained the remaining half-glass in one go.

“Here is the proof—my hand.” Ranjit lifted his right hand a little and held it out.

“Yes. When you stuck out your right hand for a lift earlier, I saw the wound under the street light. I gave you the lift when I saw that injury,” Vasudeva Rao said.

Ranjit flinched.

“Don’t panic. I felt you must be in pain from that wound. That’s why I agreed to give you a lift. I offered the drink only to ease that pain,” Vasudeva Rao added, quickly changing his tone.

“I haven’t hidden anything. I told you about myself with complete honesty. You still haven’t told me who you really are. On top of that, we decided that we shall meet again,” Ranjit said.

“You just said the place where you committed the theft didn’t have much human movement, didn’t you?”

“That’s true. I always choose a house where there aren’t many people about. That’s why, when that woman whose chain I took screamed, there wasn’t much point in it. She didn’t shout that loudly. She ended up searching for her cell phone instead. When I ran out of the house…” he paused and let out a loud laugh.

“You are right. That part is realistic. The woman who lost the chain must’ve searched for her phone. Then she must either have rung the police or called her husband and told him.” Vasudeva Rao paused for a second. “I saw a similar scene in a film on OTT.”

“Where is the big twist in that director’s script? Anyone would react in that manner.” Ranjit shrugged.

“If I continue that scene from the film—once the police received her call, they rushed to the spot and began their investigation at great speed. They went through the CCTV footage from the surrounding area. From that they picked out the thief’s picture. They sent it through their staff WhatsApp groups to the other policemen in the city,” Vasudeva Rao said.

“That’s interesting. Perhaps the scene you’re talking about is from some Malayalam film. They usually handle investigations like that in Malayalam films, in a very natural way. Those films are my inspiration for the way I carry out thefts. Anyway, what happened after that?” Ranjit asked, highly curious now.

Vasudeva Rao stopped drinking and went on with his tale.

“At exactly that time, an SI called Gautam Kumar was riding along that road in mufti on some work. A stranger stuck his hand out and asked him for a lift.

“The SI noticed that the stranger had a bite mark on his hand, as if someone had sunk their teeth into it. He said, ‘Just a second,’ and took out his phone. He opened WhatsApp and checked the group messages.

“He compared the photo that had come into the group earlier with the man in front of him. He realised that the thief in the photo and the man asking for a lift were one and the same.

“He at once passed on the information to the officers investigating the theft. After that, he let the man sit behind him on the bike,” he said.

When Ranjit listened to that, he suddenly had the strange feeling that something was out of place. This is exactly what happened to me.

The way Vasudeva Rao described each detail like beads on a string matched his own experience. It felt wrong. Restless, he stood up from his chair, still chewing the last few groundnuts.

By then, a quiet smile had spread across Vasudeva Rao’s face.

“You—you aren’t SI Gautam Kumar by any chance, are you? You introduced yourself to me as Vasudeva Rao,” Ranjit asked, his inner world cracking open with alarm.

Vasudeva Rao lifted his glass, tilted back the few remaining drops into his mouth, and set the empty glass gently on the table. He raised his right hand and stroked his moustache upwards.

He did not let Ranjit hang in suspense any longer. He gave him a slow sideways smile and nodded his head as if to say yes, while he revealed the twist.

Ranjit’s whole body had broken into a cold sweat. His heart swung like a pendulum inside his chest.

He tried to dart away from there. There seemed no way out, yet he tried to slip off at lightning speed, like quicksilver.

At that very moment, four policemen burst into the bar. They had already reached the spot by tracking the location that SI Gautam Kumar had sent. They closed in around Ranjit.

“I gave you my word, didn’t I? I said we’d definitely have a drink together again. I told you I’d surely turn up. But not with the money you stole. You must bear the punishment for all the thefts you managed to keep from the police until now.

“One day you’ll come out of prison. After that, you must work hard, with your own two hands, and earn five hundred rupees honestly. That day, call me. I shall come. We shall have another drink with that money. Okay, Mister Ranjit?”

While a constable thanked him, the trainee SI Gautam Kumar accepted it with a quiet smile and walked towards the bill counter.

Before I met SI Gautam Kumar, I thought that gold chain was the precious thing that had been stolen. But now, I realise that I myself have been stolen away by SI Gautam Kumar, Ranjit thought.

A tired little smile slipped onto his lips as that thought rose within him.
 

“The Theft” (titled “Chori” in Telugu) by Anuganti Venugopal was first published in Eenadu Sunday, on 12 April, 2026.
Translated into English by Rajeshwar Mittapalli.

Anuganti Venugopal (b. 1965) was born and brought up in the Jagitial district headquarters (Telangana, India). He is a versatile writer and an experienced educator, with a strong academic background spanning several disciplines. He holds master’s degrees in Telugu and Sociology, a B.Sc. (MPC), a B.Ed., and a Vidwan degree in Hindi. Professionally, he serves as a School Assistant (Physical Science). A prolific storyteller, Venugopal has written around 200 short stories. Most of these stories have been collected in nine volumes: Amma Nanna, Gopalam, Navarasabharitam, Nalugu Putalu, Na Mini Kathalu, Anuganti Kalam Kathalu, Bujjigadi Benga, Vyvidya Kathalu, and Nalugu Methukulu. Venugopal has also written six novels, of which three were first serialised in popular periodicals: Avani, Twinkle Twinkle Wonder Star, and Ala Pelli Kardu Printayindi. The other three are award-winning novels: Ame Atadu Avida (recipient of the Swathi Anil Award), Amuktamalyada and Haripriya (both recipients of Usha fortnightly awards). His other longer works include Venugana Satakam (a sequence of 100 verses), Amma Nanna Pillalu and Vijayaniki Annee Metle (two essay collections). Venugopal’s literary contribution has drawn academic attention as well. Under the title “Anuganti Venugopal Kathalu” (The Stories of Anuganti Venugopal), a university research scholar successfully completed an M.Phil. dissertation, attesting to the critical and scholarly value of his work.

Image (c) istock.com