“I have always lived in Shakrial. My father drives a rickshaw and we live in our family home with our relatives. We don’t have the tradition of going to school and getting an education in our family.

My mother enrolled me in school but I left in fourth grade. One of my cousins was already going to a workshop near our house and was learning to be an auto electrician.

He suggested I join him and I spent the next four years learning how to fix generators.

I was pleased with my job in the beginning and I was earning good money too but I soon realised I could only learn so much at that workshop.

I then started working at another one in Satellite Town and then another and another.

When I was working in Satellite Town, the owner of an auto decoration shop, which had just opened, offered to teach me how to fit various gadgets and alarm systems in cars. I spent two years learning how to do that and then I learnt the work of an electrician as well.

I have now started working on commission based projects where I also get paid for bringing in clients.”

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2017