The end of the thief's tradition

A certain thief was caught red-handed and sentenced to two years in jail. This thief had actually stolen very little, but there were many expensive things he wanted to steal. He served his time in jail, but inwardly he still cherished the desire to steal. On his last day, the superintendent of the jail said, "Now you are being released. You will be free, so be careful. Do not steal any more. You have been in jail for two long years. So you know how thieves are punished. From now on, try to live a normal, decent life."

The thief said, "How can I? Theft is in our family tradition. My father was a thief, my father's father was a burglar and my grandfather's father, my great-grandfather, was a hooligan. So it is in our tradition. It has been handed down from father to son. It is said that if you break your family tradition, you will be tortured in hell. That is why I am doing it."

The superintendent of the jail said, "What kind of philosophy is this, that you are carrying on your family tradition by stealing and robbing? We have come into the world to become better human beings, not to do the wrong thing time and again. If we do something wrong, we should try to rectify it. We should not repeat our mistakes."

The thief said, "But I cannot mend my ways. I have to follow my tradition. This is the only profession that I know."

"What is the first thing you will do when you leave here?" asked the superintendent.

The thief was shameless. He said, "The very first thing I will do is go and steal something."

"It is a hopeless case," sighed the superintendent.

Then the thief added, "Something else has occurred to me. Before I commit a theft, I will do something else."

"What is that thing you will do?" asked the superintendent hopefully.

"I will clean my ears," said the thief.

Now the superintendent was really puzzled. "Clean your ears?" he said.

"Yes, I will clean my ears thoroughly," affirmed the thief.

"What do ears have to do with it?" asked the superintendent. "You could not have done that in jail?"

"No, no, no," said the thief. "Here I could not have done it to my satisfaction. I will go to a doctor and have my ears cleaned properly."

The superintendent said, "I cannot understand you at all. Make it clear to me. Why do you have to clean your ears before you start stealing? What have your ears to do with stealing?"

The thief said, "You do not know? The last time, I was caught while I was stealing a safe. It was in the middle of the night. As I was making my getaway, the safe fell to the ground. Poor me, I did not hear the sound, but the owner and his servants heard the noise and came running. That is how they caught me. I am planning to go to that house again. This time I will clean my ears thoroughly so that if I happen to make a sound, I can run away and avoid being caught. I know those householders have thousands of rupees. This time I am bound to be successful."

This time the superintendent became very strict. He said, "You will run away? Where will you run? Again you will be caught. And next time you are put into jail, no matter what offence you have committed, I will give you a lifelong sentence. Now that I have heard your story, all my sympathy for you has vanished. Truly, I have never seen such a bad person. You come from a long line of thieves and you yourself are incorrigible. Luckily you made the mistake of revealing your future plans. Once again I am telling you, this time your punishment will be most severe. If you are caught this time, you will be given a lifelong sentence. By the way, do you have any children?"

"Yes," admitted the thief. "I have a son. I am training him to follow in my footsteps."

"All right, you teach your son. Then when I put you into jail for life, from jail you can teach your son how to steal." The superintendent was looking at the thief most pitifully, and he was shedding tears. "I have never seen anybody as bad as you are," he said. "Here we punish people with the idea that they will stop doing bad things. In your case there is no punishment that will make you change your ways. You are not afraid of punishment."

"But I was afraid of punishment once upon a time," interrupted the thief. "If I had broken my family tradition and followed some other profession, then my punishment would have been really severe."

Suddenly the superintendent grabbed the thief and said, "I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for you. God exists. God will listen to my prayer. He has to change your mind."

By this time something had happened in the heart of the thief. For the first time he was experiencing remorse. He started crying and said to the superintendent, "You have convinced me that stealing is a very bad thing. Now can you do me a big favour?"

"What is the favour?" said the superintendent. "I will definitely give you any favour you want."

The thief said, "Can you go to that zamindar's house, the place where I was caught?"

"Yes," said the superintendent. "What will I ask him?"

The thief said, "Please beg him to give me a job and a decent salary."

The superintendent was so pleased. He said to the thief, "I will definitely get a job for you."

Then the thief became a little bit hesitant. "But will he not remember that I was the one who came to steal?" he asked.

"I will take responsibility," said the superintendent adamantly. "I will go personally and request him to give you a chance. If someone wants to change his nature, then we should all help him."

So the superintendent of the jail went to the zamindar's house where the thief had tried to steal the safe. He spoke to the zamindar, and the zamindar said, "Definitely I will give him a chance. In this life to change one's nature is so difficult. I will give him a chance. I will give him a very decent salary, more than he deserves. Let us hope that this will prevent him from stealing."

So the thief came and took the job. He never, never stole again, and he discouraged his son from stealing as well. The zamindar was so pleased with the worker that he also gave the son a good job at his house. In this way the stealing tradition came to an end.