The Boy Who Broke the Bank by Ruskin Bond
Quick answer: The Boy Who Broke the Bank by Ruskin Bond, ICSE Class 9 Treasure Chest: Nathu's unpaid wages, the rumour that ruins the Pipalnagar Bank, the chain of gossip, exam answers.
A sweeper boy grumbles to a friend that the bank has not paid his wages for a month, and by evening the whole town believes the bank is about to collapse.
Ruskin Bond (born 1934) wrote this small-town comedy of rumour; it appears in the ICSE Class 9 Treasure Chest anthology.
The story in brief
Nathu sweeps the steps of the Pipalnagar Bank and complains to Sitaram, the washerman's son, that he has not been paid. Sitaram, delivering laundry, tells Mrs Srivastava that the bank cannot pay its sweeper. She repeats it to Mrs Bhushan in the bazaar; Mrs Bhushan tells her husband; he tells Kamal Kishore the photographer, who tells Deep Chand the barber. With each telling the story grows until the owner, Seth Govind Ram, has fled.
By afternoon a crowd of depositors demands its money. The bank pays out until the manager closes the doors, and someone hurls a brick through the window. Old Ganpat, a beggar thought lame, runs to save his savings. Next morning Nathu sweeps up the broken glass, still unpaid, and Sitaram tells him the bank has failed. Nathu wonders what could have happened.
The people in it
The chain.
Themes and meaning
Exam readings include the power of rumour, the fragility of trust, and small-town gossip as a social force. The sharper point is the title's irony: Nathu breaks the bank without knowing it and remains its one honest victim, still owed his wages as he sweeps the glass.
The craft: the relay race
Bond builds the story as a relay, each carrier adding a detail until the complaint becomes a catastrophe, and he keeps the tone light so the collapse arrives as comedy. The turn is the brick through the window, the moment talk becomes damage. The ending returns to Nathu and his broom, closing the loop. Writers can steal the relay structure; a chain where each link changes the message is a structure that judges of the Writory Short Story Contest mark high because cause and effect are visible in every scene.
For the exam
Quick material for ICSE Class 9.
What writers can take from this
- Learn the chain of gossip in order; examiners ask for the sequence.
- Explain the difference between the original complaint and the final rumour to show how gossip distorts.
- State the irony of the ending in one sentence about Nathu and his wages.
- Writers, build a plot as a relay in which each carrier changes the message.
- Keep the tone light so that the damage, when it comes, reads as comedy with a sting.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a small personal complaint passes through six people, each adding a detail, until it causes a public event none of them intended. End by returning to the first speaker, who has no idea what they set off.
Questions
What is the theme of The Boy Who Broke the Bank?
The destructive power of rumour and gossip. A sweeper's complaint about late wages passes from mouth to mouth in Pipalnagar until it becomes a story of collapse, and the panic it causes actually destroys the bank.
How did Nathu break the bank?
He only grumbled to Sitaram that he had not been paid. Sitaram, Mrs Srivastava, Mrs Bhushan, Kamal Kishore and Deep Chand each passed the story on with additions until depositors believed the bank was failing and withdrew their money, forcing it to close.
What is the irony at the end of The Boy Who Broke the Bank?
Nathu, whose complaint began the panic, is the one person still unpaid, and he sweeps up the broken glass wondering what happened, never realising that he broke the bank.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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