It was 7th August, 1991 when the world fell apart for me. My father was fatally injured by some miscreants at Udala while working as an engineer with the Minor Irrigation Department. I was only 16 years old and the eldest one in the family. That same night my mother took me and my four siblings away from the luxury of the government quarter and returned to our village where we faced an uncertain future.

Our relatives helped in the initial stages, but we knew their sympathy would not last forever. How would we survive without my father’s income?