My barber asked me to pay his son’s school admission fee. I said “let me look at my pocket.” The truth is, I had already decided. The answer is no.
Let me tell you why my no is more honest than a yes.
I’ve been going to the same barber for years. Good man. Hard worker. Cuts hair all day to run his house.
Yesterday, while cutting my hair, he showed me his phone. A fee voucher. He wants to admit his son in Prep class.
Not in a government school. Not in a low-cost private school. In SuperNova, one of the most expensive school chains in the city.
I looked at the numbers:
Registration: Rs. 15,000
Admission: Rs. 70,000
Security: Rs. 35,000
Annual charges: Rs. 17,200
Monthly fee: Rs. 19,900
Total first payment: Rs. 104,600.
For Prep. The class where kids learn ABC and draw mangoes.
Then he asked me, respectfully, with that hesitation a self-respecting man has when asking for help: “Can you help me with the first payment?”
And I said: “Let me look at my pocket.”
I wasn’t checking my pocket. I was figuring out how to say no to a man I respect.
Because here’s the question nobody wants to ask him:
Why SuperNova?
Between government schools and elite schools, there is a whole world of decent low-cost private schools. Rs. 3,000 a month. Rs. 5,000 a month. Schools where his son would learn the same ABC, draw the same mangoes.
But somewhere, we’ve all quietly agreed that only the expensive gate leads to a future. That a father who admits his son to a government school has failed him.
That’s a lie. And I’m proof of it.
I studied in government schools. Until my father could afford otherwise, that’s where I went. My sister? Government school, government college, all the way.
My younger brother studied in private schools his whole life. Not because he deserved better than us. Because by his time, papa could afford it.
Same parents. Same house. Different pockets in different years.
All three of us turned out fine. The name on the school gate didn’t decide our future. What we did after did.
Now the second question nobody wants to ask:
What happens in month 4?
The admission fee is a one-time mountain. But Rs. 19,900 will come every single month. Plus annual charges. Plus uniform, books, birthdays contributions, van fee.
If I pay today, I haven’t given his son an education.
I have given him a countdown.
The day the monthly fee stops, that child gets pulled out mid-year. In front of his classmates. His first memory of school will be leaving it.
My Rs. 104,600 wouldn’t be help. It would be an EMI on his izzat. I’d pay once and he’d spend the next year drowning quietly, too ashamed to tell me he can’t continue.
So my answer is no.
Not because I don’t care about his son. Because I do.
When I give him my answer, I’ll tell him what I have written here: admit your son where YOUR pocket can keep him, not where someone else’s pocket can place him. A school you can afford for 10 years beats a school you can survive for 10 months.
That’s not me being harsh. That’s me refusing to fund a countdown.
The first payment is the cheapest part of a private school. The real cost starts after.
And this isn’t just my barber’s story. Thousands of fathers are stretching themselves to breaking point right now, because we’ve made school gates a status symbol instead of a starting line.
To every parent reading this: your child needs an education you can sustain, not a logo you can’t.
Umar H.
Originally posted on Facebook on 15 August 2026.
