Which among the two vocations - pickpocketing or stage acting - requires a higher skill set? The former, maintains Shrikant Murthy, the retired deputy chief officer of the Umerkhadi Children's Home. He has just published his second book featuring the lives of Mumbai's juvenile offenders. Having followed-up around 10,000 cases of children - boys, girls, delinquent, non-delinquent and victimized - in three remand homes and one correctional facility over a span of three decades, Murthy draws on his years of counselling underage pickpockets, street kids involved in petty crime and orphaned adolescents working for larger crime collectives.

Two Stories: True Stories (StoryMirror publishers, R200) underlines the significance of life-long follow-up and frequent interventions directed at the true rehabilitation of delinquents. Murthy navigates through two children's lives, Theo and Balwant, to offer timely advice that goes beyond the call of duty. He has not lost touch with either protagonist (names fictionalised) even after they are seemingly settled. Theo, 27, who was once a pickpocket, is based in Bengaluru and has taken up social work at an NGO, he often travels to Australia for work. Efforts are still on to trace his family in the small Silakpahaad village bordering on Madhya and Andhra Pradesh. Balwant, 26, works as a photocopy shop helper in the Fort area. He is periodically counselled, so that he retains his job, and is able to claim his share in a legal dispute over his ancestral property in Mangaon (near Lonavala). It is cathartic to witness a retired officer's chase of two dynamic case histories. Similarly, Murthy's book lists out numerous remand home officers who have rendered exemplary services in the sphere of juvenile justice. It is reassuring to read about officers who have long-term interest in children's trajectories, even while working in apathetic setups where pivotal case papers are eaten away by termite.