"The Weight of a Pencil"
Chapter One: A Boy Named Imran
Imran Ahmed was not extraordinary by the standards of his school, not a prodigy, not the kid teachers whispered about with pride in the staff room. He was, if anything, forgettable.
Tall for his age, with uncombed hair and a uniform stitched so many times that the threadwork had become part of the fabric itself, Imran walked through the gate of Dhaka Uddyan High School every morning like a shadow — quiet, unnoticed, heavy with thoughts.
He was the son of a rickshaw puller, born into a family of five in a one-room tin-shed house that leaked during monsoon and froze during winter. Every morning, before school, he helped his mother wash dishes in a roadside tea stall. Every evening, he studied beside a flickering hurricane lamp while his siblings cried for food and his father massaged his legs after twelve hours of pedaling through the unforgiving streets of Dhaka.
Imran didn’t hate his life. He just wished it was quieter. A little less hard. A little more fair.
Chapter Two: The Pencil
One winter morning, Imran was late for school. He had misplaced his only pencil — a yellow Staedtler given to him by his uncle, now missing somewhere in the clutter of last night’s chaos. With no money to buy another, and afraid of being beaten for not submitting homework, Imran searched every corner of his house with trembling hands.
He found it eventually — under the cot, chewed at one end but intact.
He ran the whole way to school.
But he was too late. The teacher, a strict, stone-faced man named Mr. Karim, ordered him to stand outside the classroom for the entire period. And Imran did, in the cold, shivering, staring at the pencil in his palm like it was both a curse and a lifeline.
That day, he swore something to himself.
"I will never let the weight of a pencil break me again."
Chapter Three: The Stigma
As Class Nine began, the pressure mounted. Everyone talked about SSC exams — the golden gate to a better life. Coaching centers, private tutors, mock tests — the richer students had it all. Imran had none.
He couldn’t afford coaching, so he borrowed second-hand books from seniors. He couldn’t afford tuition, so he self-studied from YouTube videos using his uncle’s old phone — only after everyone had gone to sleep and the data pack was shared from his cousin’s SIM.
When teachers asked questions, Imran rarely raised his hand. Not because he didn’t know — but because his English was broken and he was afraid of being laughed at. Confidence wasn’t something he was born with. He had to build it from scraps, like everything else in his life.
One day, a classmate whispered during group work, “Don’t pair with Imran. He’s a slum kid. He probably smells of fish and dust.”
Imran heard. He didn’t say anything.
He went home and bathed in freezing water, twice.
But some things don’t wash off easily.
Chapter Four: Rock Bottom
In December, Imran’s father fell sick.
Tuberculosis.
With the family’s only income stopped, Imran took a job delivering grocery parcels in the evenings. The work was hard, the pay poor, and his studies suffered.
He started dozing off in class, submitting incomplete homework, skipping chapters. Teachers began marking him “disinterested.” Friends stopped asking him out. Even his mother, once his strongest pillar, began to whisper in worried tones — “Maybe he should start working full-time.”
Imran felt like the floor was slipping beneath his feet.
One night, while walking home with a heavy sack on his back, he stopped by a road divider, collapsed, and cried — not the quiet kind, but the broken, gasping, desperate kind. He cried for himself, for his father, for the pencil he once vowed to honor, and for the future that seemed to shrink each day.
Chapter Five: A Ray of Light
A teacher named Ms. Nusrat noticed.
She taught Bangla, but she had a gift for seeing things others missed. She called Imran after class one day and asked, simply, “What’s happening?”
He didn’t lie. For the first time, he told someone everything. About the disease, the delivery job, the sleepless nights, the loneliness.
She didn’t scold him. She listened.
And then she did something no one else had done in years — she gave him hope.
Ms. Nusrat arranged for free tutoring after school. She convinced the headmaster to waive Imran’s exam fees. She introduced him to an NGO that gave him books, a second-hand schoolbag, and even new shoes.
It wasn’t magic. Life didn’t become easy. But for the first time, Imran had help.
Chapter Six: The Climb Back
He studied like a man possessed.
From 4:30 AM to midnight, with breaks only to deliver parcels or feed his father. He taped motivational quotes on the wall. He learned to say, “I can.”
He took his SSC exams in a dusty uniform with trembling hands and a steady heart. The last paper was Math, his worst subject. He solved every question with prayer on his lips and fire in his chest.
When the results came, the school courtyard was loud with cheers, tears, and camera flashes.
Imran stood quietly under a tree, phone in hand.
GPA: 4.83
He didn’t cry this time. He smiled.
Not because he topped the class — he didn’t.
But because he didn’t drown.
Chapter Seven: Beyond the Wall
Today, Imran studies at Dhaka College on a scholarship. He dreams of becoming a civil servant, to change the very system that once tried to break him.
He teaches English to slum kids on weekends. His favorite topic? "The Power of Persistence."
In his diary, now full of poems and essays, he has written just one line in bold letters:
“The world is heavy. But so am I.”
Moral:
Not all heroes wear capes. Some carry grocery sacks, wear worn-out shoes, and hold pencils like they’re holding the future.
Imran’s story is not fiction. It is the story of countless students in Bangladesh and beyond, fighting a silent war every day — against poverty, pressure, and prejudice.
And some of them win.