Driven to the city in search of employment, entertainment and luxurious life style might have been achieved if I had some sound and solid education. But life in school wasn't taken seriously. School to me was a meeting point for friends. Once we gather in school, all parental advices fell on deaf ears. To rebel against teachers were stupid heroism as I found out later, but too late. Teenage as I found out later was the most crucial stage of life being the turning point for the better or worst.
Being suspended from school turned me into a rebellious turk. Any far sighted youth would have taken a positive path to repent and to change for the better, accepting punishments as a signal to change. But no, not me. I feared nothing and always thought that the world was under my feet. I quitted school out of retaliation for being suspended, thinking that was the best way to hit back at the teachers. By quitting school, I thought I had the school on their knees and became a hero in the eyes of all the students. That was where i erred. I won the admirations of the village loafers, not knowing that I was lured into the bandwagon of failures. Sadly the hard facts was that dropping out of school was like falling off a ship before reaching the harbour. A sensible person would quickly climb back to the ship and likewise a suspended student should quickly get readmitted to school the sooner the better. But no one told me that. If there was, I wouldn't listen anyway.
I was 19 years old when I walked out of my family's farm house after having wasted years of precious youth loafing. A few shirts and jeans were all I took with me to conquer the world. My parents gave up all hopes on me. As I had mentioned earlier, all parental advices fell on deaf ears. My siblings just watched as I left. I was proud to show to all of them that I could make my own decision and was bold enough to venture into the vast world out there which they have heard of but have never seen.
My very close buddy, came to fetch me on a borrowed bike. As the noise of the bike became inaudible, we disappeared into the horizon. We were both on the road chasing our dreams. A dream we talked about everyday in the village. The city was a place where dreams came true. All the tycoons, all the multi millionaires and all the big shots found their success in the city, not in the village nor in the school. Look at the teachers, all they could afford was a car. So quitting school and heading to the city was the wisest choice. A thought no sensible person would agree with.
The city was bustling even by late evening. We searched for our fellow villager for a place to stay. By 7pm we found him. He was a factory worker staying in the company's hostels. We were told people without worker's id card were not allowed in. So he suggested another friend working at a nearby construction site. We went to the worker's quarters. It looks more like an illegal squatter settlement. Rusted tin sheets for roofs, used and reused boards for walls and one common tap out in the open where they all bathed. Workers of different nationalities worked and stayed here. They were very hostile looking and extremely unfriendly. I felt very uneasy. We were fore warned we wee not welcomed here.
Then we met another fellow villager, he was a bus conductor. He had a roommate both renting at the 3rd floor of a shop. He didn't mind us putting up a night or two with him. We promised to get a place of our own in a day or two. At the same time we'd be looking for employment. So for the first night we were through. Exhausted and without food the whole day, we slept cramped in the small room meant for one tenant.