Why i left Pakistan
I spent around 20 years of my life in different cities of Pakistan, i have my family, my friends, my childhood, teenage, my first job and so many other memories related to my motherland. Now it has been a while living away from all those things. Today i might not exactly remember, what i was thinking at that time, but i would like to document what i remember from that time when i decided to leave the country. Everything you achieve in your life cost you something. You loose somethings to gain somethings.
I will start from the following picture
This is a picture from January 2004, the time when my life was going through one of the biggest changes in my life. I got admission and joined one of the most popular engineering universities of Pakistan. It was like a dream come true. I still do not have the words for explaining the excitement i had at that time. This is moment that most of college graduates in Pakistan can dream of . An example is that; this university is located in a province of over 30 million people and less than 800 were enrolled at the university at that time. How i got in, it is also a long story. I will write about that some other time.
At that time my father was a pensioner and jobless for six years. The only source of his income was the pension money. It was around 3500 Pakistani rupees. And our family expense was over 10,000 rupees per month. And there was no luxury in life. We never owned an apartment. Our family owned just two bicycles and the some savings for our education. All of his savings were going towards an end. The education is very expensive in Pakistan. All of my siblings were also studying. We were living in a small town named Taxila cantt near the capital of Pakistan. I was 17 years old, i moved to the biggest town in the country, with a totally different culture. The city is highly populated, have a huge industry, a lot of opportunities to grow. The negative side is high street crime, high stress between different ethnic, political and religious groups.
I grew up with the thinking that if you want to have a better economic and social stability than you must be educated. Since my childhood no one appreciate to do sports or other activities than just studying. The teachers threatened everyone that you will end up being a very poor person or drugs addicts if you do not study. The parents used to tell their kids that they have given up their dreams over their education and every second person you meet asks you about your studies. In Pakistan the difference between the rich and poor class is immensely huge. You can notice it everywhere in society. The only feasible and sustainable way a middle class person can be richer is that if he/ she have a good education. The salaries of engineers, doctors, management staff and accountants are much higher than school teachers, bus drivers, restaurant persons or any other professionals. Entrepreneurship and any relevant ideas were not there around me. Therefore the education and good job became a believe of my life.
Yes i was excited because i knew that i was going to become an engineer. It was studying at a state owned university, it was affordable as compared to private sector universities. The engineers were being respected everywhere in the society, they had reasonable incomes, their parents were proud, and they were enjoying nice rides as well. And then the dream bacame a reality. I graduated .....
This is a picture from March 2008 from the convocation. I was a graduate engineer. At that time i was working in a Hongkong based multi-national firm. I was earning around 16000 rupees a month. Things changed a lot between 2004-2008. My family moved to Karachi. My brother was in the final year of his bachelors of Engineering. My father was also working at a floor mill. Our family's income was around 30,000 rupees. And our expense was also somewhat close to that. I was owner of a motor bike. But.....
So many ground realities changed. During all those years the country's economy was on a continuous decline. Our family had a loan of around 300,000 rupees. We still did not own a house. Me and my bother were planning to study further as the bachelors was not considered as enough to get to the higher management in Pakistan. Most of the people were already enrolled into the masters programs in the country and the one who could afford to go abroad for studying went abroad. The biggest pressure were the loans. They were taken from the relatives. My father never took any loan in his entire life before i started studying in the university, and he was always stressed because of that. He could not pay them by any means. Our family's income and expense were matching and there was no way that we could afford to a pay a loan that was 10 times more than the total income of the family. My mother went through an operation. The medical care in a private hospital costed so much. Our family did not have any savings left for health care, higher education, buying a house and weddings. A normal home at that time was costing around 3-5 million Pakistani rupees and a normal wedding costed around 1 million rupees. So a person who earns only 16000 rupees can not dream of achieving these things over a year or in 5-10 years. I started doing MBA in the evening but due to the high tution fees i could not afford it and i quit after one semester.
I was doing great in my professional life. I was happy with my social life. But the economics and future goals were not supporting each other at all. Raising prices for everything triggered this thinking of getting a better income. Going abroad for studying or work was popular among the graduates of my university. Me and my friends were always diccussing about these issues. Most of the time there were negative feelings associated to the future of young and educated people with in the country. Every second person's opinion was that it is better to live abroad and there were many people who were struggling to get out of the country to live a better life. The rich people were leaving country because the security situation was not good enough. With a Pakistani passport there were no possible ways to travel or work in many countries. And it used to cost too much time and money to get a residence for visit, studies or work in any developed country. A reliable survey at time showed that over 80% people of Pakistan want to live abroad.
I projected my life, many years ahead of the time. I analyzed all my available resources. I talked to so many people about different possible scenarios in future. I ended up with a conclusion that i have to leave the country for good. How i planned to leave, how many efforts i did for that is really long story. I will write about it in future. But after 1.5 years of my graduation i managed to moved to Sweden and i completed my Masters in one year. With the efforts of our whole family we managed to get rid of all of our loans. And the most important thing that matters to me that my father and mother were very very happy.....
