CHAPTER 3: The Price of Dream

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CHAPTER 3:The Price of the Dream

 

Chapter 2

Sabir thought passing exams was the hard part. He was wrong.

The real exam was surviving the journey itself.

**The Ghost of Township**

City District Government Boys High School, Township, Lahore. That name followed him like a shadow, like a stain he couldn't wash off. He cleared his Matriculation and Intermediate with flying colors with the help of a scholarship.

After that, he got the courage to apply for the tough course CIMA. He walked into his first CIMA study session in Lahore and immediately felt it. The air was different. People spoke differently. They carried themselves differently. English flowed out of their mouths like it was their mother tongue.

For Sabir? He had learned English from worn-out government textbooks, shared with three other

boys. The pages are yellow. The binding tore. He sat in the corner that day, quiet, observing. A guy next to him was discussing corporate strategy. Casually, like he was discussing cricket. Sabir understood the words. But the rhythm? The confidence? The way he held his coffee cup? That was foreign.

*You don't belong here*, a voice whispered inside his head. He ignored it. What else could he do? He practiced speaking in front of his bathroom mirror at night. Ridiculous, pathetic, but necessary. He watched YouTube videos on professional etiquette. How to shake hands. How to sit in meetings. How to make small talk, small talk. The most useless skill in the world. Until you don't have it. Then it becomes a wall.

**The Math of Survival**

Money. Always money. Every morning, Sabir woke up and did math, not CIMA math, survival math.

Tuition students. Eight, one dropped out yesterday. His mother said, " Fees are too high."

"Amma (mom) fee is not the problem; the government will pay it, but there are more expenses like books and others like that." Curriculum books prices were twelve thousand, and other expenses.

The calculator didn't lie. The numbers were brutal. Then the news came. The pound increased again. Rupee devalued. Just like that. Overnight. His exam fee jumped by three thousand rupees. Three thousand. Doesn't sound like much, right? For Sabir, it meant three more students. Or two more weeks of teaching. Or skipping meals. He chose to skip meals. Bread and chai. Twice a day. Cheapest option.

Some nights, he stared at the ceiling. Counting. Always counting. The pressure sat on his chest like a physical weight, heavy and suffocating. What if a student leaves? What if someone falls sick? What if the exchange rate goes up again? The anxiety never stopped. It just changed shapes.

**Blind in a Maze**

There was no one to ask. Nobody in his family had ever heard of CIMA. Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. The words sounded foreign even when he said them out loud.

His father was a simple man, hardworking and honest. But clueless about corporate

careers.

"What will you do after school?" his father asked once.

"Abba(Dad), it is not a government school."

"Then what is it?"

Sabir couldn't explain. How do you explain management accounting to someone who has never seen a corporate office?

Other students had advantages. Rich kids. Their fathers were CFOs. Their uncles worked in multinationals. They had roadmaps. They knew which papers to attempt first. Which subjects were easy? Which teachers were best? Which academies actually delivered results?

Sabir had nobody. He stood at the CIMA registration portal like a man standing at a crossroads with no

signs. Which operational case study to pick? When to schedule the exam? Which revision weekend to attend? He figured it out through forums. Through YouTube. Through trial and error. Errors cost money. Money he didn't have. So he couldn't afford errors.

**The Tired Body**

Teaching tuition from four to nine, returned home and ate if there was food, and opened CIMA books

at ten with eyes burning, back aching and brain numb from explaining the same accounting concept to

uninterested school kids for five hours. The words on the page blurred. He read the same paragraph four times. It didn't register. The concepts were difficult.

CIMA is not a joke. Strategic-level papers required a deep understanding. Deep analytical

thinking. His brain was fried, completely fried.

There were days he thought about quitting, just stopping, going to sleep, and giving up on this stupid dream that was eating him alive. But then he closed his eyes. And saw the ceiling of his old classroom in the Township. If I quit, it will be the end, not physically, but mentally, financially, and spiritually. He opened his eyes, picked up the book, and read the paragraph again. Fifth time, it made sense now, barely but enough.

**The Other World**

Exam day, Pearson Vue center, Gulberg. Sabir arrived on his bike, a worn-out Honda CD 70. Parked it in the corner where the security guard wouldn't notice. He walked in and felt it immediately. They were different; the other students parked outside were Civics, Corollas, and a Mercedes. They were chatting,  laughing, and stress-free.

*They were born at the finish line*, he thought. *I am still looking for the starting line.* But Sabir had learned something. Something the rich kids never would. How to survive and how to compete?

The rage was against the system. The inequality. The invisible walls that make a government school boy feel like an alien in his own country's professional world. He sat in the exam hall. Took a deep breath.

The rich kid next to him was chewing gum, relaxed and unbothered. Sabir cracked his knuckles. He started the exam.

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CHAPTER 2: The Power of Literacy

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CHAPTER 2: The Power of Literacy

 It did not happen in one big moment. No sudden change. Just small things. Quiet things.

Sabir started looking at the papers he had collected. Not like before. Earlier, it was just a waste. Sell it, get coins, move on. Now… he stared at them. Sometimes, for a long time, he liked words that were hiding something from him.

He did not know how to read. Still, he tried.

He would pick a piece. Hold it close. Eyes moving slowly across lines he could not understand. It felt strange. Frustrating also. But something inside pushed him. So he asked people.

Not everyone listened. Most didn’t even stop. Some laughed. Some ignored him. “Ja ja, kaam kar,” they would say. But one day… someone stopped. A man. Simple. Calm face. Not in a hurry.

He took the paper from Sabir’s hand. Read a line. Then he looked at him. Explained softly. Urdu words. Sounds. Letters. Sabir listened as if everything depended on it.

‘Why do you want to learn?’ the kind man asked.

“To get money”, Sabir simply answered.

From that day… it became a habit.  Ask. Listen. Repeat. Forget. Learn again. Urdu letters turned into words, then sentences. Slow process. Very slow. But the kind man's attention and Sabir's efforts worked.

By the time he was seven… he did something no one expected. He took admission in a government school. No one guided him properly. No big support. Just his own stubborn mind. Life after that… got even harder. Morning came early. Too early. He still had to work.

So he woke up before sunrise. Went out with his sack. Collected garbage fast. Rushed through the streets. No wasting time. Then back home. No rest.

He picked his school bag. Old, faded, almost tearing. Still… it was his. And he ran to school.

Classes were confusing at first. Teachers talking. Students writing fast. Sabir trying to catch up. Sometimes lost. Sometimes blank. But he did not stop. After school… no playing. No break. Work again. He sold cold water bottles on roads. Calling out to people passing by. His voice got weaker as the day went on.

Other days… he sold boiled eggs at tea stalls. Standing for hours. Watching others sit, drink tea, talk like they had time. He had no time. Night came late. Very late. He returned home tired. Body aching. Eyes burning. Still… not finished. Homework waited.

He sat under candle light. A small flame shaking in the air. Smoke makes his eyes water. No electricity. No proper light. Just that tiny flame. He studied. Slowly. Carefully. School was not kind to him.

Teachers… Some treated him differently. Not openly maybe, but it was there. In tone. In behavior.

Classmates were more direct. They made faces. Moved away. Laughed at his clothes. Dirty. Torn. Smelling of the work he did all day. No one wanted to sit near him. Sabir noticed everything. Of course he did. Later in life he would laugh and say, “I think I was not smelling very good at that time.” A joke.

But the truth was inside it. Back then… It hurts. Deep. It hurt. Still… it did not break him. Something else happened instead. It made him stubborn.Very stubborn. If they looked down on him… he would rise higher. If they pushed him away… he would move forward anyway. He had decided something.

Without saying it loudly. He will prove himself. No matter how long it takes. No matter how hard it gets. For Sabir, reading opened a door he didn’t even know existed. Before that, the world was small. Streets. Trash. Work. Survival. He read whatever he could find. Anything. Everything. Old pages. Borrowed books. Sometimes torn. Sometimes missing parts. 

Books changed things. Still… he read. Russian stories. Heavy. Deep. Hard to understand fully… but he tried. Then writers like Virginia Woolf. Different style. Different world. Karl Marx too. Big ideas. Complicated. But something inside him kept pulling. He didn’t read like others. He read like someone trying to escape. Or maybe… trying to build a way out. Then one book stayed. Close. Very close.

Great Expectations.

That story… it hit him. A boy. Poor. Struggling. Trying to rise above his class. It felt familiar. Too familiar. Sabir saw himself there. In pieces. In moments. In feelings. For the first time… he thought clearly. Maybe life is not fixed. Maybe where you start… is not where you must end. This idea stayed with him. Strong. His circumstances… poverty, work, people’s behavior… Maybe they are not final.

Maybe they don’t decide everything. Maybe… he can change something. It was not a loud realization. No big speech. No dramatic moments. Just a quiet thought. But powerful. And once it entered his mind…It never left.

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