Deprivation of Heritage Property by Ferdous Ara Uddin

In Bangladesh there is a custom of property distribution. The forefather of family divides all his properties among his next generation. In this way, a child becomes the owner of property which came from the previous generation .Sometimes there is lack of rational distribution when properties are split among children. My father was a victim of this situation. My father was only the man who contributed to his family lot,but no one of his family was ever grateful to him. Although my grandfather had main role to make this land property in my village, my father also provided him lots of financial support. As a result, he did not get any credit from his family. In fact, he was deprived of his right to get property proportionately. However, losing possessions of property could not disappoint my father mentally; instead he overcame his initial loss by moving to the city and working hard. Eventually he established himself and our family with the financial support of my mother, and helped my brothers, sisters and me to grow with a better education system.

Moving to the city was the first step to change our lives. My father the only income source in our family. When we came to city, he felt like he was in the middle of the sea. At the same time he did two jobs and tutored to maintain our family. Besides his jobs he continued his studies. He rented a house which consisted of one bedroom, kitchen and one washroom. That was really so congested house for our seven family members, so it was hard for our family to spend every single day there together. After completing his studies, as a graduate student he was recruited by the government job. In the meantime, he had a chance to breathe peacefully after long journey of hard working. Gradually my father was improved his financial condition. This great loss of property could not devastate my father to hinder his growing career. My father kept working hard to overcome this financial crisis.

In addition to my father along with my mother's help was attempting to establish in the social life because my father was so ambitious. My mother supported him financially with handicraft business. He believed that industrious people can reach their goal. Consequently, they were

capable to buy property in the city within one and a half years. Moreover, he got a promotion as senior officer in his government job. Also the government provided us a big house to live in, so we shifted to the government house from the rented house. After that my father took a house building loan and started to build house in his new land in the city of Bangladesh. By this time, my father became owner of the six storey building. The house rent was also added to our income source, so there were no more sorrows in our family.

After coming to the city my siblings and I got better opportunities to study in high quality educational institutions. My elder brother got admitted to the most prominent university of the city,and he also got an offer to work at a tutoring center. My younger brothers and sister got admitted to the city college,and I got admitted to the Railway Public School (English Medium School) which was well-known in the big city,so these educational background had played significant role to build up our careers successfully. In fact, my younger brother joined a factory as mechanical engineer, and my elder brother had worked in multinational company. At the same time my elder sister was also recruited as a government employee. Moreover, she started to enjoy all government facilities including housing, transportation,and treatment. After that I had completed my bachelor's degree in University of Science and Technology Chittagong. My father's inspiration and financial support made us more independent. The great loss of property could not make his feeling listless and depressed.

Finally, I can say that my father was the pioneer to build these various land properties, although he would never inherit the heritage properties. He was deprived from his legal rights to get land properties from his father. Nevertheless, he bought property again and the endless effort was continued to recover his losses. His endurance and endeavor helped him to reach to top position. Moreover, he proceeded many steps to help our family. I really learned so many things from these practical experiences how my father established our family tremendously. In our country it is a common problem. Most of the families are affected negatively by property related problems. Therefore, I think government should come forward to minimize the irrational distribution of properties, and to get rid of people that are cheating others.