Every Friday afternoon my family plays badminton in the courtyard of our apartment block in Dhaka. It started about three years ago, after my father's doctor told him to move more, and now it's something we all look forward to.
We usually start around four, after Friday prayers and lunch, when the sun has dropped behind the buildings. There's no proper court, just a net my mother tied between two poles, and we draw the lines with chalk. My father and I normally play against my mother and my little sister Nusrat, who's twelve and surprisingly competitive. My grandmother sits on a plastic chair keeping score, and she's famously unfair, always giving extra points to Nusrat. A few neighbours' children usually join in after a while, so by the end it's a bit chaotic.
I think we enjoy it for a few reasons. The obvious one is that it's good for us. My father has lost weight, and I sit at a desk all week as a junior architect, so I need the movement. But honestly, it's more about time together. During the week everyone is busy, my sister is buried in homework and my parents come home exhausted, so this is the one time we're all in the same place without phones. We laugh a lot, especially when my father dives for a shot and misses completely. It also connects us with the neighbours, because people stop to watch and chat. If we ever skip a Friday, it genuinely feels like something is missing from the week.