Almost one year ago, I started working. The day when I first came to work it was my elder sister’s 13th birthday. She reads in class nine and I read in class five. Last year, a marriage proposal came for my sister, Sonia. She was broken hearted and cried a lot by holding her diary tightly. I snatched it from her and saw there was a composition inside which was titled ‘My dream’. Her dream is to go to university. She was crying and begging our mother not to marry her off. That day our mother did not talk to us. I saw tears in her eyes too. I usually love to sleep but that night I could not sleep and thought a lot about how to save my sister. I saw my mother was also not sleeping. Then I told my mother, I could also break bricks with her and earn for our education. She showed me her hands and said I could never do that. I told her I could do it. For us my mother has been breaking 300 bricks every day for the past 10 years. Then why cannot I break 100 bricks a day for us? I forced my mother to break my sister’s marriage proposal. And my sister started to go to school again. Now I earn 600 taka every week and give it for her education. Every day after finishing school I come to work. When I return home, I sit to study. Many times my sister tried to stop me from coming to work. I told her very soon she would work and I would only study. But sometimes it hurts a lot to even hold a pen. But I can manage. I can write well with the same hand that breaks bricks.
_Chadni (9) (Collected from GMB Akash’s facebook page)