Describe a happy event from your life

A happy event I want to talk about is when my family finally got our own flat in Dhaka. Before that we were living in rented flats for fifteen years, and we moved four times, because the landlords always increased the rent or wanted the flat back for their relatives.

It happened two years ago in December. My father saved money for many years, and also he took a loan from his office, and the building was under construction for a long time, so we had to wait nearly three years for it.

I shared this moment with my parents and my younger sister, Nusrat. On the day we got the keys, we went there in a CNG, which is a kind of auto-rickshaw, and my mother brought a box of sweets to give the new neighbours. In the evening some relatives came and we ate biryani sitting on the floor, because we didn't have any furnitures yet.

It made me very happy because finally we had a place that belongs to us. But I think the main reason was my father. He is not a person who shows his feelings, but that night I saw him standing on the balcony and looking at the city, and he was smiling by himself. I understood how much stress he had all those years. So for me it was the most happiest day in my life.

One of the happiest days of my life was when my family moved into a flat we actually owned. Up until then we'd been renting in Dhaka for about fifteen years, and we'd had to move four times because landlords kept putting the rent up or deciding they needed the place for a nephew.

It was two years ago, in December. My dad had been saving for most of my childhood, and on top of that he'd taken out a loan through his office, but the building was delayed again and again, so it felt like the day would never come.

I shared it with my parents and my younger sister, Nusrat. When we finally collected the keys, the four of us squeezed into a CNG with a box of sweets on my mum's lap, because it's a tradition to hand them out to your new neighbours. That evening a few relatives came over with pots of biryani, and we ate sitting on newspapers on the floor, since we hadn't got a single piece of furniture yet.

What made me happiest, though, wasn't the flat itself. It was seeing my father that night. He's quite a reserved man who rarely shows what he's feeling, but I found him out on the balcony looking over the rooftops and smiling to himself. That's when I realised how much pressure he'd been carrying all those years, and how relieved he must be that nobody could ask us to leave again.

The event that springs to mind is the day my family got the keys to a flat of our own. It sounds ordinary, but we'd spent fifteen years as tenants in Dhaka, moving four times, always at the mercy of landlords who could hike the rent or reclaim the place on a whim.

That was two Decembers ago. My father had been putting money aside since before I started school, and he'd borrowed the rest from his employer's staff loan scheme, but the developer missed one deadline after another, so by the end we'd half stopped believing it would happen at all.

I shared it with my parents and my sister, Nusrat. We went to collect the keys together, all four of us crammed into a CNG, my mother clutching a box of roshogolla to hand round to the new neighbours, which is what you do here. That night an uncle and two aunts turned up with enormous pots of kacchi biryani, and we ate cross-legged on spread-out newspapers, because there wasn't a stick of furniture in the place.

What made it such a happy day, though, was something quite small. Later that evening I went looking for my father and found him on the balcony, gazing out over the water tanks and rooftops, smiling to himself. He's not someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, so seeing him like that told me, more clearly than anything he could have said, just how heavily the insecurity had weighed on him all those years. For the first time in my life, home felt permanent, and I could see it did for him too.