---
title: The First Salary | Bachpan Diaries
description: The first salary comes on a Tuesday, and before buying anything for himself, he sends his mother two thousand rupees with no message attached. Also written in Hindi.
image: https://bachpandiaries.com/hubfs/bachpan-diaries-theme/blog/featured%20images/PNGs/First%20Salary%20%E2%80%94%20Laptop%20Open%2c%20List%20Half%20Crossed%20Out.png
---
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# The First Salary
By Manoj Rajput • May 30, 2026
Now Playing The First Salary
0:00 / —
1×
The first salary came on a Tuesday.
It was not a large amount. I had known what it would be - the offer letter had been clear - but seeing it actually sitting in my account felt different from knowing it was coming. A real number. Mine.
I called my mother first.
She said congratulations and asked if I had eaten lunch. I said yes. She said good. We talked for nine minutes about nothing important and then she said she had to go check on something on the stove.
I sat with my phone for a while after that.
I had a list.
Not written down - just carried in my head for months. Things I would do when I had money of my own. A particular pair of shoes I had looked at twice in a shop near my college and not bought. A book I had been waiting on. Dinner somewhere that wasn't the cheap place near the office where the food was fine but the chairs were plastic.
I did none of these things that day.
I transferred two thousand rupees to my mother's account instead. No message with it - just the transfer. She called back twenty minutes later and said I didn't have to do that. I said I know. She said thank you. I said it was fine.
Then I went and bought the shoes.
They were slightly uncomfortable for the first two weeks. Then they weren't.
I wore them to office and nobody noticed. That was fine. I noticed.
The second thing I did with that first salary was open a small savings account I had been meaning to open for months. I put five hundred rupees in it. The balance looked small and serious at the same time.
I thought about my father, who had been putting money into something similar for thirty years without telling anyone the exact amount, and what that must have felt like the first time.
I understood, very suddenly and specifically, one thing about him that I had not understood before.
There are things you cannot know about your parents until you have done a version of the same thing yourself. The first salary is one of them.
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Manoj Rajput
I'm the founder of Bachpan Diaries. I started this project chasing down the small, ordinary memories of growing up in India that never seem to get written down anywhere, madaari shows, school bells, dabbas from home. I still read every story myself before it goes up.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
## Continue the Journey
### [ Ages 18–40 हिं The taandh ran the full length of the wall, corner to corner, and the television sat right on it, a curtain hanging in front, kept closed most days. Coming back, not from school, from tuition, pulling the curtain aside and fixing the antenna was always the first thing to happen. Read story → Bachpan Diaries · 3 min read Do You Remember Shaktimaan? Nostalgia The taandh ran the full length of the wall, corner to corner, and the television sat right on it, a curtain hanging in front, kept closed most days. Coming back, not from school, from tuition, pulling the curtain aside and fixing the antenna was always the first thing to happen. Manoj Rajput Oct 2](https://bachpandiaries.com/stories/do-you-remember-shaktimaan)
### [ Ages 18–40 हिं He used to grab hot, burning plastic with his bare hands sometimes, quick, almost bored about it, moving it aside before it could do real damage, like his hands had already decided this was fine. He was a supervisor in a factory that used to build plastic containers, Delhi, night shifts mostly. For two years, when I was ten, we lived inside that factory. Not near it, inside it. Read story → Bachpan Diaries · 5 min read What He Left Behind Family He used to grab hot, burning plastic with his bare hands sometimes, quick, almost bored about it, moving it aside before it could do real damage, like his hands had already decided this was fine. He was a supervisor in a factory that used to build plastic containers, Delhi, night shifts mostly. For two years, when I was ten, we lived inside that factory. Not near it, inside it. Manoj Rajput Sep 7](https://bachpandiaries.com/stories/what-he-left-behind)
### [ Ages 18–40 हिं It was afternoon, the kind of hour when the street usually went quiet, just the fan whirring and a radio playing somewhere far off. Then came a sound, dum, dum, dum, someone was playing a damroo, still far away, but our ears were already up. Spoons got left mid bite, slippers stayed behind, we just ran for the gully. Read story → Bachpan Diaries · 4 min read Madaari, The Monkey Show Nostalgia It was afternoon, the kind of hour when the street usually went quiet, just the fan whirring and a radio playing somewhere far off. Then came a sound, dum, dum, dum, someone was playing a damroo, still far away, but our ears were already up. Spoons got left mid bite, slippers stayed behind, we just ran for the gully. Manoj Rajput Aug 11](https://bachpandiaries.com/stories/madaari)
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He used to grab hot, burning plastic with his bare hands sometimes, quick, almost bored about it, moving it aside before it could do real damage, like his hands had already decided this was fine. He was a supervisor in a factory that used to build plastic containers, Delhi, night shifts mostly. For two years, when I was ten, we lived inside that factory. Not near it, inside it.
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