How I became a millionaire from nothing
Tax authorities will soon be scratching their heads over whether I am involved in some sort of illegal business and will be investigating my income sources. Police may suspect that I am involved in drug dealing. My friends and family, will hopefully realize that I am smarter than they thought and intelligently earned the millions of dollars that I plan to extravagantly spend. Today, I for the first time in this blog, will reveal how I became a millionaire from nothing.
But before I reveal the big secret of my success, it is important to give some background of the situation I was in before this one thing happened that made me a millionaire.
I was born in a middle class family. My dad worked as a cashier in a local bank and only earned enough to pay rent and feed us. Good education, tourism, expensive clothes, cars, and even a home which was our own and not rented was a dream. I grew up with a feeling of desperateness in me and had aimed from my very childhood that by hook or crook, I will improve my financial standings.
My mother always told me that studying hard and being a doctor or an engineer was the way to get out of poverty. She worked hard on me from my very childhood, putting me in a private school instead of a public one, requesting my neighbour aunty who was a university graduate to teach me when I was in my primary school (my mother knew how to read and write but had only studied till matric after which she was married). But I always struggled as a student and eventually failed in my matric examination. I gave the supplementary exams and failed in them too. This disappointed my parents and soon I found myself being discussed in my extended family and being labelled as ‘nikama’ ‘nalaiq’ ‘useless’ etc.
My friends suggested me to try doing business. I asked my father for some money to buy my own moving van. My friend had one which he used to drive between Defence and Clifton and he told me that the rich people moving homes pay whatever you ask them. My dad although disappointed that i had given up my education was happy to know that I was not as useless as he had imagined and that I was actually willing to earn some money and contribute in family income. We didn’t have any savings but my dad was to get some money on retirement and he could take it a few years in advance.
He took that from his bank and gave it to me to buy the moving van. I can’t forget his words when he handed me over the cheque that I was to use to buy the van: “This is all we have” he had stated with a worried face. “I had planned to use this for your sister’s marriage but she is still young and we hope that you will be able to utilize this money now and pay us back in a few years”, he had further exclaimed.I accepted the cheque with tears in my eyes and hugged my dad. At that moment, a hug was all that I could give him.
I was 18 at that time and soon received my driving licence. The van also came and I started driving it in Karachi, mainly sticking to the route between Defence and Clifton. It went quite well in the first few months and I started earning a stable income. Soon, I was earning more than my dad and the condition of my home improved dramatically- we bought a computer, new 70cc motorbike for my dad and shifted my sister to a better school. For the first time, I could see my mother proud of me, she even started looking for a bride for me.
But one incident changed everything. I was doing the shifting of a family’s furniture on my usual route from defence to clifton when suddenly my friend called and told me that the MPA of Karachi’s most powerful party had been shot. The party had called for a ‘peaceful mourning’ but soon ‘unknown’ men were rioting all over Karachi. I had grown up in Karachi and this was nothing abnormal. I forwarded the news to a few other friends and continued driving towards my destination.
If I could cross the main roads and reach clifton, I could request the family for whom I was shifting stuff to let me park the car and wait inside their home for a few hours and wait till the sun sets down. It usually gets calm by the evening-of course after a few dozen people have been murdered and some cars and properties burned.
As I continued towards my destination, I suddenly saw that the road in front had been blocked by some protesters. They were pelting stones at cars and burning some of them. I tried to reverse back but there was a huge queue of cars behind me and I was stuck. I could see them coming towards me and I didn’t know what to do. I saw people leaving the cars on the road and running for their lives. Someone who was running hit his fist hard on the door of my van and shouted: “Run or they will kill you”. I had no choice, I left my van there and ran for my life. I took shelter in a nearby mosque for a few hours and then came back to get my van.
While at the mosque, I had prayed for nothing but for Allah to keep my van safe from protesters. I feared that they would break the glass which I knew would be expensive to repair. But when I reached back at the road, I got traumatized. My van had been burned and with it my dreams, wishes and aspirations. I didn’t know what to do. I got crazy and started shouting swear words for the protesters. I was angry from outside but deep inside I was crying. I was worried for my ailing parents, my unmarried sisters and my own future. This van was all my family had.
I returned home and narrated the story to my family. Despair and gloom could be seen on the face of every member of the family for next few months. I was once again sitting at home unemployed and our family income had reduced to 1/3rd in the blink of an eye. My dad was to retire soon and no one knew what will happen then. But I could feel that everyone still looked towards me and expected me take the family out of this misery.
We all make plans but are dependant on luck for their success. In my case, I was destined to be a millionaire.
One usual day, while I was checking my email to see if I had received reply from hundreds of places where I had applied for jobs I saw an email titled as “Attention”. The subject of the email itself got me on my toes. I thought perhaps it was compensation from the government for my burned vehicle or perhaps a job offer. But it turned out to be something way better, something that has changed my destiny, and will soon change my lifestyle. I will soon be spending bucks like people do in monopoly. The email stated:
Dr. Stanley Nodick.”
By now you must be jealous of me and my good luck. How can someone be so lucky?, you must be wondering. Well, all of you can hit your heads on the walls and cry about your poor luck. I don’t care much about anyone except me and my family now. Same last name with an unknown guy has changed my destiny. I have told my family, relatives and friends that I will soon be receiving US$12.5 million in my account. Some jealous relatives tried to trick me by saying that such emails are fake but I then replied back to the email and asked them to promise me that they will be sending me this money. They have sweared by God that they are not fake and infact a real bank. They have asked me to fill a form and transfer few hundred dollars as transfer charges and then millions of dollars will be transferred in my account. I have borrowed these transfer charges from a friend (promising to pay him triple in few days) and will be transferring to them soon. I know that soon everyone will be asking me about how I became a millionaire from nothing and therefore I have explained the story in this blog.