The sun has just started to rise. Every morning Nabi wakes up during this time. He has to go to the newspaper printing office and then he goes to the local train station to sell the newspapers. Gorom khobor, gorom khobor(hot news , hot news) actress Dipa has suicided.
He ask the man in front, “ sir do you want one?” It's only 5 cents sir and today's news are so thrilling .
(source:https://asiancorrespondent.com/2011/03/burma-will-publish-a-fresh-daily-newspaper-under-military/#MqZytrHX8phdyDu1.97)
The guy buys the newspaper. Then he goes from person to person and tries to sell the newspapers. He earns some money. His income is around 25 cents per day. Sometimes even less, depending on how many newspaper he has sold that day. Then he comes back to home around 9:00, eat rice with salt and one green chili and packs his books in polythene paper and goes to school. Some school kids come with beautiful school bags with pictures of big buildings , some famous people's pictures on it and of so beautiful colors and beautiful designs. Nabi wants to have a bag like that but he needs at least 10 dollars for it. But he thinks one day he will buy it .
Nabi has two brothers and three sisters. He is the third child of his parents. His father is missing, thats what his mother told him. He is the only person in the family after his mother who earns money by which the family survives. His mother works in some people’s house as a maid. She cleans their houses, wash cloth and cook for them. The money she gets is never enough for the family to survive. When they sit to eat, Nabi’s mother always give him more rice. She thinks he should eat more as he is working. Other kids become jealous for their mother’s special attention for him.
Nabi is in class five. He has books on science, math from the school. He got them for free. There he read about discoveries of the scientist and mathematicians who changed the world. He dreams to be like them. His house doesn’t have electricity, he lives in a slum. All day he is busy at selling newspapers and taking care of his young brother and sister while his mother is at work. In the night while everyone sleep, he goes under the lamppost in the nearby area and tries to read what the teacher taught in class that day.
Today his teacher was telling story about a mathematician, named Ramanujan, He was very poor and he couldn’t finish his high school. But he loved math. Today everyone talks about him, talks about how genius he was. Nabi wants to be like him. He wants to be someone important, he wants people talk about his inventions and his work. His eyes becomes bright and a little smile in his face. He dreams, he heard dreams come true if you really want them to come true.
Sometimes in the afternoon he goes to the beach, sits on the sand looking far how the boats vanish in the big sea, the waves created far in the ocean reach the shore. He thinks all of us are like the waves, created in the deep sea at last we find our home on the sandy shore. He sees how the red sun hides under the water and comes back every morning out of the water again. He wants to know about it, he wants to know where it hides, does it sleep like him and wake up every morning?
He went to the school next day. He was sitting in the third bench and there was a boy sitting beside him. The boy was wearing nice white shirt and new pant, while Nabi was wearning a torn shirt. He asked Nabi why he is wearning a shirt like that. He said this is the only shirt he has. So the boy said that he will give him some shirts and pants. He introduced himself to Nabi and said "I am Kabir and you?". Nabi replied “I am Nabi”. They started hanging out during the school time, play football after school. Sometimes they go to the beach and watch the sunset and talk about how mysterious everything is.
That day after selling the newspapers he came to the office to take his share and he said to the man in charge “you have to give me 32 cents”. He asked “how?”. Nabi said “I sold 16 newspapers, for each newspaper two cents in total 32 cents”. The guy said "you are good at math" . Nabi said "I read, count and I learn". He said you should earn money, " what will you do by learning?" He said "I want to be a smart man and wear tie". The guy smiled and said "come down little boy, don’t fly so high".
(source: https://www.compassion.com/bangladesh/bengali.htm)
Next day he meet Kabir in school and Kabir was wearing a tie.
Nabi: Did you tie it by yourself?
Kabir: Yes
Nabi : I don’t believe.
Kabir : I don’t lie.
Nabi: Show me, then I will believe.
Kabir shows him how to do it and Nabi is imagining that he has a tie and does the same like Kabir and says, "another time please".
That day he was passing by near the tea stall and he was hearing from the tv that the education minister of the country was giving his speech in front of the school kids . The education minister himself was from a very poor family. He said that everyone can be successful in life by working hard. He said that to be successful you need to have a goal, get very good education, work very hard and lastly you need to have patience. Nabi gets hope and he feels inspired.
When he reached home, he took the books and tried to read them. He now believes that if he works hard, he can make his dreams come true.
