No One To Back Me—Only Forward
There was never a safety net. Not at home, not at school, not as a stranger in a new country, and definitely not now. The early days at Scholastica taught me one thing: if you wait for a helping hand, you wait forever.
If you've ever sat alone in the last row, lost among the crowd, you know what I mean. It's not about being brilliant or chosen or having the answers. It's about enduring—through the silence, through the anxiety, through every moment when quitting looks easier than another day alone.
At Scholastica, I learned the daily struggle—raw, unromantic. The world didn’t care if I made it or not, so I learned to care for myself.
The Only Rule: Stay Standing
When I left for BHU, the uncertainty doubled. New faces, new voices, new fears. There were no calls from home, no mentors ready to rescue me when the bank balance slipped into red or when loneliness hit like midnight rain.
All I had was a stubborn resolve—a small, unbreakable knot inside my chest: never give up, even when giving up would be the easiest choice.
In that sprawling, ancient campus, I learned what it means to be truly alone. Some nights meant going hungry, some exams meant staring straight into the face of failure. There was nothing noble about the fight—just days stacked on days, each survival its own small victory. I watched others lean on friends, on family, on luck. I kept walking.
But the universe never promises easy lines. It took years—five of them—to reach even a hint of comfort. In that time, I watched the seasons shift and the hostel corridors fill with students who always seemed to belong more than I did. I grew used to the pattern: falling sick but dragging myself to class, bruising muscles and breaking bones in accidents that no one had time to care about. On many days, my body felt like one more test designed to expose my limits.
There are moments the memory of pain returns sharp as glass: blood on my sleeves after a fall, hospitals with flickering lights, days where fever and hunger blurred together. I wished for a pause button—just a single warm hand or word—but I learned to press forward with empty pockets and a heavier soul.
With every blow I endured—sickness, injury, sleepless worry, fear—I built a kind of core strength born only from necessity. There are scars that will never leave me, and there's a strength that comes only from surviving because you simply cannot surrender.
Year after year, I learned what it means to fix yourself, to limp back into the noise when you have nothing and no assurances. Survival became my habit; persistence my only routine.
Yet, despite the relentless grind, fate did not forget me forever. In my very last stretch at BHU—when I had almost convinced myself I would finish as anonymously as I started—I stumbled into a rare kind of luck.
It wasn’t sudden, but by some miracle, a few people, scattered among the thousands, began to notice me. It started with a conversation in a seminar, a gesture in the library. And as though the universe had been saving up kindness, I finally crossed paths with three professors.
They were nothing less than a turning point. For the first time, I found something close to family.
One looked after me like a father—discreetly, quietly, but always present at the edge of disaster. Another guided me as my mother might have, equal parts tough and tender. The third—closer in years—became the elder brother I’d never had, offering fierce, unvarnished advice and a place to air even my most desperate worries.
By then, five long years had passed. I was older, harder, maybe even jaded—but I was also finally seen.
Their support arrived almost too late, yet perfectly in time. With their guidance, I limped across the finish line—not triumphant, but not broken either. They didn’t erase my scars, but they taught me what it means when someone believes in your battle. Even after surviving in a void, a small circle can change everything.
I saw others lean on friends, family, luck. I kept walking.
You get used to the echo—alone, but alive.
Scars and Small Triumphs
Every setback scars you. But the scars prove you were there.
No one tells you how to navigate the shame of failure, the confusion of relentless uncertainty. I learned: the only answer is to keep moving.
- Sleepless nights? Walk off the tiredness on empty streets.
- Low grades? Study again, even if disappointment burns.
- No support? Build your own foundation—one brutal, lonely day at a time.
There’s nothing unique about hardship. What matters is you face it, stare it down, and refuse to disappear.
Building Strength, Losing Fear
Over time, something shifts. You start to realize you’re still here.
And if you’re still here, you haven’t lost.
I began to gather tiny moments of strength—getting through each semester, making it through another month of relentless challenges, finding comfort in the few things that stayed constant: a good book, a sunset, the promise that things change (even if it’s slow).
I learned—never give up. Not because hope is easy, but because endurance is all some people have.
The Dream: Not For The Privileged
Maybe you dreamt of leaving, too. Going somewhere new—whether it's a different city, a new country, or just a place where you finally feel free.
I did. With nothing but resolve, I chased down every possibility: applications, exams, interviews that seemed built to keep people like me out.
Most doors slammed shut. Some opened, barely. Everywhere, the answer always seemed “no”—but I kept asking, kept knocking.
No connections. No family pulling strings. Just the grind, day after day, making something out of nothing.
Arriving at the Edge: No Crowd, Just the Horizon
When the chance came to go further, to aim for the USA, it felt almost laughable—the stuff of stories that other people tell, never believing. I wasn’t chosen, wasn’t one of those born shining. I got the opportunity for one reason: I never stopped.
Through bitter rejection, stinging humiliation, days where it felt like poverty would win—still, I kept grinding.
The application process alone was a marathon of hope and heartbreak. I filled out forms while my hands shook from exhaustion, wrote and rewrote statements of purpose that traced every wound and every dream into English. On nights when self-doubt crawled into my mind, I stared at my reflection and promised not to flinch.
Money was short—sometimes gone. Hope was thinner, a thin thread stretched over an abyss of “not yet,” “not enough,” “maybe never.” People talk about the “American Dream,” but for most of us, it’s a mirage. For me, it sounded ridiculous to keep running at a closed door. But I did, never expecting a miracle, only because stopping would have meant disappearing.
Waiting for results was torture—days blurred into nights as emails stacked up, most of them carrying blank, cold rejections. I woke up to silence more times than I care to count.
Every time my courage began to fail, I remembered the empty rooms of my childhood, the five years lost and grown at BHU, and the truth that nothing was owed or waiting for me anywhere.
Then, one night, numb with defeat, an email arrived. “Congratulations.” A single word, impossible and fragile.
And in that instant, everything reversed. America, for me, wasn’t a destination—it was a fever dream come true. The idea that a stranger like me, battered and persistent, could step out of the cracks and set foot in some vast, impossible world? It was absurd. Yet suddenly, it was real.
Leaving felt like flying and falling at the same time. I packed everything I owned—memories, regrets, the battered hope that wouldn’t die—and boarded a flight to a land everyone said was paved with possibility.
I cried in airports; I smiled through nerves and customs. I landed to find a place as frigid and dazzling as legend—a world louder, richer, lonelier, and more alive than any storybook.
No one tells you migration is magic and misery all at once. There were no parades, just cold nights and the ache of missing everything familiar. I spent months lost in translation, fumbling for meaning, praying that stubbornness would count for something here too.
People were busy, the systems strange, time itself unsteady. There were days I wandered strange streets in awe, believing, for the first time, that the impossible was possible. Other days, I sat in empty rooms, wishing I could go home—but knowing I no longer had a home to return to.
But through it all—that same resolve remained. America wasn’t a finish line. It was not a Hollywood ending. It was the start of another road, this time even emptier, even longer.
Nothing miraculous happened overnight, but something subtle changed: I began to believe that my own sheer unwillingness to quit was the fairytale. The fact that I persisted, that somehow I crossed oceans that should have drowned me, became my story.
If you’ve ever felt invisible, overlooked, outnumbered—know that it doesn’t end when you move. But neither does the fight. The only thing that matters is you keep going, even (especially) when hope feels like the biggest lie of them all.
And who knows? Someday, you might look back and see that your refusal to give up was the greatest fairytale you ever lived.
America wasn’t a finish line. It was another road, this time even emptier and longer. Arriving in a new world, you find: the same struggles, just new scenery.
If you’ve ever felt invisible, overlooked, outnumbered—know that it doesn’t end when you move. But neither does the fight.
Persistence Is Everything
If you ask me for a secret, there isn’t one.
No shortcuts, no sponsors, no extra luck. Every day is survival—studying, working, learning, failing, and getting back up.
You build routines:
- You learn new languages.
- You adapt to odd jobs, strange cities, unfamiliar cultures.
- You endure loneliness, push through heartbreak, nurse wounds no one sees.
And somehow, through all these days, you don’t quit.
Because the real story isn’t about victory—it's about persistence. About showing up when nobody expects you to. Living with uncertainty, anxiety, even shame, but coming back anyway.
For Whoever Feels Alone: A Promise
This isn’t a story about triumph.
It’s a story for anyone who’s ever felt truly alone. For the soul who builds their own courage in silence, who learns to live without applause.
If you’re out there, hurting, tired, not sure if tomorrow will be any better—
Don’t quit.
You may never get the support you deserve. You might fight for years without a single hand reaching out to help. But you will become strong in ways privilege cannot teach.
Nobody gave me a roadmap. Nobody waited at the finish line. Everything I built, I built on the refusal to lie down and disappear.
What Lasts
Success changes definitions—sometimes, just surviving is success enough.
Other times, it’s reaching a new city, a new country, a new version of yourself after years of doubt.
But the strongest thing you carry isn’t a job title or a stamp in your passport.
It’s the fact that you persisted, when nobody thought you would.
The Story That Sells Itself
People love a happy ending. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But the real story—the story most people need—is the one about persistence, about tenacity, about not giving up when hope runs out and the world gets dark.
So if you’re reading this, and you feel invisible, unsupported, lost, just know:
If you keep going, you change everything.
You become your own miracle.
The Fight Goes On
Today, whatever my location, whatever my work, I don’t pretend the road is easy.
I don’t pretend I’m special. I just keep going, because the alternative never suited me.
My journey is for anyone who has nothing except the will to continue.
All you need is to never give up.
And that’s enough.