16 March 2018 THE NIGHT DIARY by Veera Hiranandani, Dial, March 2018, 272p., ISBN: 978-0-7352-2851-1

“I think Islam hates us. There’s something there that — there’s a tremendous hatred there. There’s a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There’s an unbelievable hatred of us.”

-- Donald J. Trump, 3/9/16, on CNN

“If I had ever been here before

On another time around the wheel

I would probably know just how to deal

With all of you”

-- David Crosby “Déjà Vu,” 1970

July 21, 1947

Dear Mama,

Kazi tells me stories about you once in a while. I hardly ask him to tell me about you, though, because I’m afraid that the stories might run out. I want to save them, like a treat. This afternoon, I used his mortar and pestle to grind coriander seeds, first crushing them as hard as I could, then twisting the pestle in circles to flatten them and make them into a powder. As soon as they broke under the weight of the pestle, I smelled the warm, soapy scent of them. Kazi chopped onions holding a wooden stick between his teeth so he wouldn’t cry.

I asked him if you liked to cook. Kazi shook his head, taking the stick out of his mouth. ‘She never set foot in the kitchen. She liked to paint. She’d go off to the back of the house and paint and paint. She had to be reminded to eat, she was that sort,’ he said, and put the stick back in his mouth. Just like Amil, I thought, who always ate the bare minimum in a hurry, hardly tasting it, and then begged to be excused so he could go back to his drawings or watch the older boys in the neighborhood play cricket. I want to be like you, Mama, but I can’t understand anyone who forgets about food. Kazi took the stick out again.

‘It’s your papa who likes to cook. That’s where you get it from.’

My mouth dropped open. Papa doesn’t even make his own tea, I thought.

‘Before he hired me, he did all the cooking for your mama, and when they had guests, they’d pretend she did the cooking. She’d even dip her fingers in the curry so her nails would be yellowed from the turmeric.’

I shook my head. I couldn’t imagine any of it. Papa cooking. Papa pretending, Papa and Mama pretending together, here in this house.

‘Your papa told me,’ Kazi said, reading my mind. He moved on to a pile of green chilis, slicing them into tiny slivers.”

THE NIGHT DIARY is filled with intimacy and immediacy. It transported me halfway around the globe and back seventy years to the portion of India that was about to become Pakistan.

The writing here is beautiful, and the intense, in-your-face storytelling results to some extent from the manner of the telling. Twelve year-old Nisha, a girl of few words when out in the world, writes insightful and revealing journal entries at night to her mama, who died giving birth to Nisha and her twin brother Amil. Despite the closeness of the twins, Nisha shares many thoughts and feelings only with her mother.

The story begins just before the British cede control of “old” India. This transfer of power resulted in the immediate partitioning of India into “new” India and Pakistan. In the largest mass migration in history, Hindus were compelled to depart newly-formed Pakistan, crossing the partition line in one direction, and Muslims departed new India, crossing in the other direction. Where followers of different religions had coexisted, suddenly there was hate and violence. More than a million people died during this exchange.

In the midst of this heartbreak, chaos, and carnage, Nisha, Amil, their physician father, and their paternal grandmother must quickly leave behind their lives, home, possessions, and friends. They also must leave behind Kazi, the paid chef who lives in their back cottage, with whom Nisha has a deep emotional connection. But Kazi is Muslim.

An interesting and important twist in the story is that Nisha’s dead mother was Muslim. Nisha’s mother and father were both estranged from their families when they married. The twins, who are classified as Hindu like their father, are technically, fifty-fifty Hindu and Muslim.

One of my hobbies is cooking vegan Indian cuisine. I adored Nisha’s sensory-laden details of shopping, cooking, and savoring food, which were almost cinematic.  

Sadly, the world we inhabit today has yet to resolve the conflicts that so perplex Nisha all those years ago. Musim/Hindu intolerance and violence in India and Pakistan still erupts periodically, with tragic results. And far too many in the U.S. and elsewhere hold ignorant views on Islam, contributing to the never-ending hatred and bloodshed.

The Partition was a major world event that is underrepresented in children’s literature. THE NIGHT DIARY is a beautifully-written, distinguished piece of historical fiction. It’s a truly moving and memorable read.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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