I should have known my father would catch me. He was an accountant, after all. But desperation makes you do foolish things, like adding a few extra zeroes to a school expense list and hoping he wouldn’t notice.

He did.

The moment his eyes stopped on the figure I had written for tuition, I knew I was done for. He adjusted his glasses, read it again, and sighed deeply. My mother, sensing the tension, walked in and snatched the paper from him. One look and she gasped, clutching her chest like I had written a death sentence instead of a budget.

"Fifty-five thousand for departmental dues?" she exclaimed. "Is your department building a cathedral?"

"Seventy thousand for hostel maintenance?" Dad added. "You don’t even live in the hostel!"

I didn’t have the strength to explain. It wouldn’t change anything. The story was always the same—"We don’t pluck money from trees," "Things are hard," "Manage what you have." They thought I was reckless, wasting money on luxuries, but they had no idea.

Prices on campus skyrocketed daily. A plate of food cost twice what it did last semester. Transport fares drained me before mid-month. Yet, instead of increasing my upkeep, it was reduced. Every request for more money came with a lecture on contentment and responsibility. They thought I was exaggerating.

But how do you exaggerate hunger?

How do you explain that you wake up every morning with more financial calculations in your head than academic ones? That between classes, you’re not just thinking of lectures but also of where the next meal will come from? That when they say, "Focus on your studies," they don’t realize that focus is a luxury you can’t afford when your stomach is empty?

I had found ways to survive—small side gigs, favors from friends, skipping meals—but I couldn’t tell them. If they knew, they would say, "Leave all that and concentrate on school." As if good grades came from thin air. As if stress and exhaustion weren’t clawing at my brain every second.

I stared at the list in Dad’s hands, knowing I had lost this round. He would pay what he saw fit, and I would return to campus to battle reality once again.

School wasn’t just about lectures. It was about survival. And I was on my own.