Due to financial hardship, family problems, and disintegration, my childhood was spent on the streets. I was addicted to drugs and wasted precious years of playing and studying while I was on the streets.

I am living in a slum in Dharan Sub-metropolitan City-15. I am now 18 years old. I have written many stories in my life before I even turned two decades old. I have seen and experienced poverty, despair, and hardship up close. I am trying to escape from the swamp and stand on my own two feet.

After being born into a poor family, poverty followed me. The household expenses were met only when my father worked as a laborer. My mother passed away when I was young. That made me even more lonely. Now I have a father and brother at home. My brother is studying in grade 4. Life changed after my mother's death. My father was always busy with work. There was only Boju (grandmother) at home. Boju raised us.

I came to the streets at that time with the help of friends I met. And I started begging with my friends on the road. I used to beg for money on the road all day and go home at night. Sometimes I started sleeping in the street. Later, my house became the street and the street corners. I had many friends on the street. We gradually started getting attracted to cigarettes and drentlights. Sometimes when we had a lot of money, we also started using drugs. I was always immersed in the world of drugs. Neither worrying about anyone, nor suffering for anyone. I was busy with myself and my own world. I was only 8 years old when I came to the street.

While the day was passing like this, the VOC (Voice of Children) organization in Itahari rescued us. The organization keeps street children like me. Then my life took a new turn. After spending a year on the street, I reached the organization. There were many children like me there. There were also some friends who walked and slept together on the streets. While living in the institution, my new life began according to the rules and schedule there.

It was very difficult at first. It was very difficult to break the addiction to drugs and the habit of walking and eating openly on the streets. I was taught in the institution from 10 am to 2 pm. I learned the alphabet there and could read Nepali. After my habits improved, the institution rehabilitated me with my family.

After coming home, I could not discipline myself. I started getting addicted to the company of friends again. The street became my destination again. Sometimes I would pick up bottles, sometimes I would ask for money, sometimes I would wash dishes. I would buy and consume drugs with the money I earned. I spent a second year and a half on the streets. After the same institution got information, it rescued me again and took me back. It was difficult to improve myself after going to the institution again. But, the second time I thought that I had to improve myself. After spending almost a year there, I left and came home. I started working to help my father pay for the household expenses. Now I also give the money I earn to my father for household expenses.

Initially, I worked loading sand on a tractor, but I left that job after being paid a small wage. Now I help in house construction. Now I work as a brick and sand carrier. I get 900 rupees a day for this. I save 500 after eating lunch and dinner. I earn 16 thousand a month. But I don't always get work. I get paid only on the days I work. My monthly rent is 11 thousand.

My father drives an auto. The money earned by my parents is enough to cover the rent, water, electricity and my brother's education expenses. I work all day. I haven't been able to save money. I borrow money the day I get it and run out. I have helped my family a little bit for household expenses. Life is going on like this these days. I have no plans, nor do I have any dreams of becoming something in the future. I am struggling to make ends meet. I have to work for food, if I don't work, I will go hungry, and now I am starting to worry so much.