The Night Diary

“Nobody ever mentions the fact that you were Muslim, Mama. It’s like everyone forgot. But I don’t want to forget […] I guess we’re Hindu because Papa and Dadi are. But you’re still a part of me, Mama. Where does that part go?”

Nisha and her family are secular, cultural Hindus, taking part in Hindu ritual only on special occasions. Because Papa and Dadi are Hindu, and Mama, who was Muslim, is deceased, Hinduism is the religion/culture that their family practices. There is no dislike or negativity in their home toward Muslims, but Mama is not present to reinforce Muslim traditions. Nisha is curious about the part of her that is her Mama and associates it with being Muslim.

“I talk to your picture and you watch me with your eyes. When I ask you if you can see us from somewhere, if you think Amil is smart, or if I’ll be able to talk in front of other people someday, your eyes say yes to it all.”

Nisha, through her ongoing dialogue with Mama, constructs a mother who is everything Nisha needs and wants her to be, aside from physically present. Nisha’s version of Mama is hopeful, understanding, and encouraging. Nisha knows her mother loved her and wants the best for her, and that is why her eyes say yes to it all. Nisha finds solace in the image of her mother.

“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.”

All things having to do with Mama are sacred to Nisha. They represent all that she can ever have of her Mama. She is gone and can make no new memories and no new stories. Nisha knows very few people who knew or are willing to speak of Mama besides Kazi, and for that reason, she wants to save the stories of Mama. This quote shows her longing for her mother.

“Everything is different now, even though it’s exactly the same. I can see it all around us, but I don’t know what to call it. It’s like a new sound I can hear in the air.”

Nisha is reeling from Amil telling her that boys in his class have divided into Muslim and Hindu groups. Boys who had just been friends now call each other names and are fighting. Nisha feels the tension, but because she still doesn’t understand the cause, she doesn’t know what to call it. She feels the tension in the air but notes that everything looks the same.

“The chasing, the rocks. Before it was just stupid things boys do. Now, it all had a mysterious anger to it.”

Boys chase Amil and he loses his sandal and a scorpion stings him. Nisha asks him if the boys had beat him, and Amil says he’d outrun them. The same boys had always picked on and chased Amil, and he had provoked them, but now Nisha is concerned it is because he is Hindu. She notes the “mysterious anger,” that the other children have likely gleaned from their parents. The “anger” will only worsen as the novel continues.

“‘Gandhi wants everyone to stay together, which is what I want, but most people aren’t like Gandhiji. When you divide people, they take sides. There’s a lot of confusion and fear out there. I don’t want you to get hurt.’”

In this quote spoken by Papa, Papa reveals his spiritual leanings. Neither religiously Hindu nor Muslim, Papa walks the line between the two, whishing only for peace. Papa explains to his children about the warring religious factions, and Nisha wonders why they, who don’t have a dog in this fight, must yield to the whims of religious leaders.

“[Kazi] looked at [Nisha] and his whole face changed, his mouth smiling wide. [She] could see almost all his yellow teeth. ‘And I am four times as much, but I feel like I don’t know anything.’”

Nisha asks Kazi why intruders came into their home and beat him. She says she is 12, echoing Papa’s comment that she is old enough to understand what is happening, but she does not understand the violence that has erupted. The author uses Kazi’s smile to acknowledge the naivete of a 12-year-old girl thinking she’s grown up, and Kazi’s age to illustrate how illogical the violence is; even at Kazi’s age, there is no reasonable explanation for people who had been living together peacefully should be rising up and acting violently toward one another. While Nisha’s perspective is naïve, Kazi seems to question the wisdom of the warring factions in favor of Nisha’s idealistic wisdom.

“‘Everybody thinks they are protecting and defending their people. But we are all people, right?’”

Amil asks Papa why people are fighting. Prior to explaining India’s independence and the partition, Papa tells the story of the family members who objected to his marriage to their mother. Papa, generous and respectful in his assessment of those with differing world views, tells Nisha and Amil that the naysayers were well-meaning. He is unable to tell the children what people are protecting and defending their people from, though, because he sees the similarities in people, not their differences. Papa is not religious and does not see people of other faiths as inherently threatening.

“‘You must know that the way I feel is very dangerous now. Do not talk about your mother with other people.’”

Papa is referring to his beliefs being aligned with Gandhi’s. Papa is a doctor who sees the insides of human bodies and believes people are all the same. He believes Jinnah and Nehru are leading the country toward a violent division. Papa’s beliefs put him in a dangerous minority, particularly because he and his family are Hindus living in what will soon be Pakistan. That is why it is vital Amil and Nisha not discuss Papa’s beliefs or their mother’s religion. Papa says they are in danger and will not be safe until they get to new India.

“I wonder what it feels like to have words come out of your mouth that you don’t even have to think about, that you don’t have to take five deep breaths before you even shape your mouth around the first letter and push the word out with your tongue.”

Nisha struggles to vocalize her thoughts. She is unable to use her voice to express herself, both in happy and in challenging times. The novel is, however, in her voice in the form of a diary. Hiranandani uses the diary format to give voice to the young protagonist.

“There was one thing I did understand. I would have memories of life here in Mirpur Khas and memories of life in the new India. My childhood would always have a line drawn through it, the before and the after.”

The going away party has ended, and Nisha cannot sleep. She sits with Papa at the table and drinks warm milk. Nisha confesses to Papa that she feels badly for telling her cousin Malli about new India because it upset Malli and started the process of the guests leaving. Papa tells Nisha that she should not worry; she and Malli are both old enough to understand what is happening. Nisha understands that they are leaving, but she cannot comprehend why.

“If you were alive, would we have to leave you because you are Muslim? Would they have drawn a line right through us, Mama? I don’t care what the answer is. We came from your body. We will always be a part of you, and this will always be my home even if it’s called something else.”

Nisha clings to whatever part of Mama is in her, knowing that because she is both Hindu and Muslim, one cannot be bad and the other good. Furthermore, she cannot fathom having her mother alive and being separated from her simply because of her religion.

“‘You should speak more, Nishi. You’re a wise child. Probably because you’ve spent so much time listening instead of talking.’”

Kazi says this to Nisha on the eve of her family’s planned departure for Jodhpur. Nisha is holding back tears, and fights to get the words out to ask Kazi if he’ll join them. Kazi calls her “Nishi” out of tenderness and a shared sadness over their imminent separation. It’s notable that when characters are encouraging Nisha, they ask her to speak more, and when they are punishing her, they ask her to speak less.

“I felt the things he couldn’t feel and he said the things I couldn’t say, except to him. That’s how it worked.”

This speaks to the nature of being twins. Aside from being each other’s best and only friend, they each have strengths and weaknesses that compliment and support the other. Many times, Amil speaks for Nisha because he knows she cannot. Nisha in turn feels the pain of Papa’s disappointment in Amil, and she says and does things to make it easier on Amil.

“Papa put his hands together and nodded respectfully at the man. The man nodded back, then we went one way and they went the other.”

Papa and the man are both fathers. Papa has experienced the possibility of losing Amil, but more immediately, the man’s assault on Nisha. While Papa had feared for Nisha’s life, he is able to see this man’s humanity and as someone who has just lost his reason for living. Papa knows it could just have easily been him and holds no anger against the man. Instead, Papa gives the man dignity when he places his hand on the man’s shoulder, hands him his knife and allows him to leave peacefully.

“Finally, we kneeled, huddled together around the fire and passed around the pot, spooning lentils and rice in our mouths, soft and almost salty, big grins spreading over our faces. I would have never imagined it, all of us, shoulder to shoulder, warm and smiling. Papa put his arms around me and Amil again. The sun sank into the horizon and exploded in hot oranges and blues. I swallowed another mouthful and felt Papa’s strong arm on my shoulders. Mama, it’s so strange. At the end of the day we almost died, I was happier than I could ever remember.”

Nisha has nothing, but she has everything she wants. Amil has survived a near-death experience in the desert, and they have gone hours without eating. Nisha is able to use what she’s learned from Kazi to prepare her family a meal and bring them together. They eat a warm meal, together around the fire, and it is everything Nisha has hoped for. Their troubles have brought the family closer together.

“‘Is Rashid Uncle nice?’ I asked, surprising myself. The words had started slipping from my mouth a little more easily. We were different here on this path, our hard cracked feet pounding the hard cracked earth. Nothing mattered here. Nothing was real. We didn’t have neighbors. We didn’t have a home. It was in-between living.”

It takes the loss of her home, the challenges of their journey, and the harsh conditions of the desert to make Nisha recognize she has little to lose in speaking. The thought pops into her head, and without equivocating, asks Dadi.

“He was such a sad and frightened man. The was his hands shook. Why had his family been killed? Why would anyone do that? Do people who kill start out like me, or are they a different kind of human?”

Nisha shows empathy for the man who has just held her at knife point. She is unable to conceive of why someone would murder this man’s children; so much so, she wonders if she is capable of becoming someone who could kill. Later, she will witness men killing other men on the train.

“If I were allowed to play with her, I would talk to her, I promise, Mama. I wouldn’t waste it. It’s like the rules are different now.”

Nisha is lonely and wants so badly to have a friend that she is convinced she can overcome her struggle to speak. She has survived the hardship of the desert, and by comparison, speaking to another person does not seem so insurmountable; the fact it is forbidden makes it all the more enticing. Soon after Nisha writes this, she gets the opportunity and does talk to Hafa.

“It’s the funniest word. It feels like feathers in my mouth.”

Nisha tells Amil that Hafa, the girl next door, had waved to her. With his characteristic wit, Amil replies, “Brilliant” (198), which is an inside joke between the twins. It is a word that a British man who had visited Papa said repeatedly, and each time, it made the twins laugh. It also alludes to the British influence over India. In this context, Amil uses the word “brilliant” to elicit laughter from Nisha.

“He knew her. He could see her in our faces. It was like another universe had opened.”

After dinner, when the family is having tea and reading, Rashid Uncle writes to the children on his chalkboard telling each of them the ways in which they resemble their mother and tells them both how happy he is to see their faces. The fact Rashid Uncle knew Mama and can see Mama in their faces fills Nisha with joy. It is another connection to the mother she never knew.

“My body felt like it was melting. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered. It was the answer I had always wanted to hear. It almost made everything we had been through worth it. The tearing of India. The tearing of walls. Then opening of something new, of this. You loved us, Mama.”

Throughout the book, no matter how bad Nisha has it, she looks for a way to give her struggle meaning. Rashid Uncle telling Nisha and Amil that their mother had loved them is everything Nisha has ever wanted to hear. Nisha hadn’t wanted to leave her home or travel across the desert to places unknown, but to have her mother’s own brother tell her that her mother loved her makes the struggle worth it.

“No more sadness, no more fear. Just emptiness […] Everyone is better off when I don’t talk. I’m not going to, Mama, ever again. […] I will write my words down on a chalkboard so they can be erased.” 

Papa catches Nisha and Amil talking to Hafa. With panicked anger, Papa chastises both Amil and Nisha, and he tells Nisha that he’d been wrong about her talking, and she should just stay quiet. He says these words out of fear, but Nisha takes them to heart. She knows it is her fault they will have to leave immediately, but she also feels the injustice of not being able to have a friend. In her mind, it is her fault her family has to leave, and she will not get to say goodbye to Rashid Uncle, so she takes Papa’s words to heart and stops speaking entirely. She will only communicate in writing.