A criminal versus someone who has committed crimes

A criminal versus someone who has committed crimes is a distinction Lin draws between unlawful acts and an adopted criminal identity. In his account, the dividing line is not whether a person has broken the law, but the motives and means that organize those actions. His own passage across that line begins when revenge leads him to join Abdel Khader Khan’s criminal organization, where he learns to make crime a profession.

The Distinction Between Acts and Identity

Before working for Abdel Khader Khan, Lin had committed serious crimes, but understood himself as a desperate man acting to support a heroin habit and an exile earning small commissions on scattered deals. He distinguishes those earlier offenses from becoming a criminal: the acts were real, but they had not yet made crime his chosen occupation or organizing purpose. The distinction does not erase the harm or seriousness of what he had done. Instead, it describes a change in how he acts and what role he accepts for himself.

Revenge as the Turning Point

Lin traces that change to his imprisonment in Arthur Road Prison. After his release, he wanted to discover who had put him there and why, and he wanted revenge. He recognizes that another person might have left Bombay rather than pursue that aim; he could not bring himself to do so. Joining Abdel Khader Khan’s branch of the mafia appeared to him the safest and fastest route to vengeance. The choice thus makes motive decisive, while also showing how a desire for retribution can lead him into a durable criminal role.

Instruction, Means, and Belonging

Joining the organization gives Lin more than an opportunity to act on revenge: it gives him instruction. Abdel Khader Khan sends him first to Khaled Ansari to learn the black-market money trade, supplying the practical means that turn his earlier, scattered offenses into organized criminal work. Lin recalls that this new life felt exhilarating and that he felt protected within the group. His account therefore holds together two facts that complicate a simple moral boundary: he knowingly accepts professional criminality, yet experiences its discipline and companionship as a form of belonging. The concept marks not a clean break between innocence and guilt, but the point at which desperate lawbreaking becomes a chosen vocation.