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.
Love, Nisha
* * *
August 8, 1947
Dear Mama,
It’s the day after the party, but it’s like nothing has changed. Papa went to work. Amil and I wandered around trying to think of stuff to do. I helped Kazi cook. Sometimes Dadi would ask us to sweep or wash or fold or put away. After we’d go out and sit on a blanket in the garden to draw and read. I’ve been reading some of Papa’s medical books. Papa likes it, I can tell. He stands over me to see what part I’m reading, nods, and walks away. Maybe he thinks I’ll be a doctor one day even though I hate blood, and bad smells, and the actual insides of bodies.
I just want to know what people are thinking. Maybe if I understand how the body works, if I know what every part of it looks like inside, I’ll understand more. I study the heart, the ventricles, the arteries, the bones, the liver, the kidneys, the spleen, the lungs, the blood that runs through the veins. I study the brain, the weird coiled blob that holds everyone’s secrets. Is it the brain that makes me quiet sometimes, that makes Amil see letters every which way? Is it the brain that makes people love and hate? Or is it the heart?
Love, Nisha
* * *
August 15, 1947
Dear Mama,
It’s happening now. Sorry I haven’t written you for six whole days. The last few days have blended into one. There has been packing and Dadi trying to hide her crying and lots of stern explaining from Papa. Amil keeps running from Papa, to Dadi, to Kazi asking questions. I am silent. No words of mine could change anything. Papa tells us with change, good and bad things will come. At midnight, while we were sleeping, India became independent from British rule. At the same moment, Pakistan, a new country, now exists. Where I live is not called India anymore.
I’m still not sure what it means to be free from British rule. Papa says they have ruled over India for almost two hundred years. I don’t feel British at all. English children from the books or newspapers I’ve seen don’t look like I do. They have light skin. They wear different clothes. I know Papa drinks English tea and has English biscuits. I know that there is a British guard who stands outside the Mirpur Khas City Hospital. I know that we have British furniture in our bungalow, like the upholstered wooden chairs in the sitting room and our large oval dining table and English china. I also know that the British aren’t going to be the rulers anymore and I guess we don’t like British people telling us what to do. Will Papa drink different tea? Will the guard leave? Will we have to give back the chairs and table?
Pakistan was for the Muslims and everybody else will go to India, which isn’t here anymore. I wondered if any Hindus were staying anyway. Amil asked Papa that same question, but Papa says it’s not safe and the fighting will probably get worse. All non-Muslims in Mirpur Khas have to leave and the Muslims in the new India are coming here. Papa says it was a group decision between Lord Mountbatten for the British, Jinnah for the Muslims, and Nehru for everyone else. They all agreed to the partition. Amil asked if Gandhi was part of that group. Papa said that Gandhi wants a united India, that we are all Indian no matter what faith we follow. But it doesn’t matter now, he says. The decisions have been made, and we must make the best of it and go peacefully.
So as of today, the ground I’m standing on is not India anymore. And Kazi is supposed to live in one place and we’re supposed to leave and find a new home. Is there a Muslim girl sitting in her house right now who has to leave her home and go to a new country that’s not even called India? Does she feel confused and scared, too?
But here is the question that is most on my mind. I’m afraid to say it, even afraid to write it down. I don’t want to think about the answer, but my pencil needs to write it anyway: 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.
Love, Nisha
* * *
August 16, 1947
Dear Mama,
I saw the newspaper on Papa’s desk. There were pictures of people celebrating on both sides, India and Pakistan. But it’s still two sides of the same country to me. I don’t feel like celebrating. The headlines said Birth of India’s Freedom, and Nation Wakes to New Life, and Frenzied Enthusiasm in Bombay. But all births are not happy. Like me and Amil. Ours wasn’t. We lived and you died. It must have been a terrible day for Papa when we were born. I wonder if he even loved us then. I wonder if it’s hard to love us all the way now. It’s like India—a new country is born, but my home is dying.
Nobody is celebrating freedom in our house. I must pack my things. I must leave all my books. Our rugs and tables and bookshelves and Papa’s desk and most of the stuff in the kitchen except for a few pots and pans and dry food are staying behind. I heard Papa telling Dadi there are riots everywhere and, if we don’t leave, we could be killed or taken to a refugee camp. Who would do this? Our neighbors? The kids we went to school with? The merchants at the market? Patients who Papa treated at the hospital? My teacher? Dr. Ahmed? Papa says that everyone is killing one another now, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs. Everyone is to blame. He says that when you separate people into groups, they start to believe that one group is better than another. I think about Papa’s medical books and how we all have the same blood, and organs, and bones inside us, no matter what religion we’re supposed to be.
I went into my room to pack. Amil had already finished. He only packed his paper, pencils, and some clothes. We are allowed to take one sack each. We will take the train to the border tomorrow and then change trains to go to Jodhpur, our new home. Papa said a carriage will take us to the train. I put in my clothes, three pencils to write with, this diary, and all of your jewelry that I keep inside a little silk spice sack. Papa says I can’t wear it anymore, that people might try to take it. I put in Dr. Ahmed’s gold coin, too. I also put in a pinch of dirt from our garden so I’ll always have a bit of the ground you walked on, a piece of my India.
Love, Nisha
* * *
August 17, 1947
Dear Mama,
It’s definite. Papa told us this morning that Kazi is not coming with us tomorrow. I kept hoping there was a way, but Papa says it’s too dangerous and Kazi says he can’t.
Couldn’t he just say he’s Hindu and dress in Papa’s clothes?
Tonight we had a quick dinner of paratha and dal, since most things are packed or given away. Kazi made my favorite kind of dal with red lentils and mustard seeds that pop in my mouth. While he prepared it, I sat on the wooden stool swinging my legs. I didn’t want to help, not tonight. I knocked on the counter so he’d look at me, not sure if I could say his name out loud.
He looked up as he crushed the cumin with his mortar.
“What is it, Nishi?” he asked.
I looked down and bit my lip, hard. “You have to come with us,” I murmured, and my voice broke. The tears started to fall. I wiped them quickly away.
“It’s okay, Nishi,” he said. “I’ve been crying, too,” he said, handing me a small towel.
I looked at him in surprise.
“I have, but I could make you all a target if I come. People think they are defending themselves, standing up for their people, but it’s all out of fear,” he told me.
“How would people know, if you dressed in Papa’s clothes and said you were Hindu?” I asked him, my voice stronger now.
“People have a way of finding out these things. I’d have to change my name. I’d need fake paperwork. It’s too dangerous.”
“So you aren’t coming with us because of fear,” I said
without thinking.
“You should speak more, Nishi. You’re a wise child. Probably because you’ve spent so much time listening instead of talking.”
My face felt hot, burning.
“Yes, it’s fear. Mostly for you, not me. If something happened to any of you because I was there, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
I squeezed my hands into fists and tried to keep the tears back. Kazi went on. He told me he would look after the house, that maybe we might come back someday. He didn’t look at me anymore and poured the cumin powder into a little bowl. He washed the mortar and pestle and dried it. I sat quietly and watched, my throat feeling thick and scratchy. Then he held out the mortar and pestle and asked me to take it.
I shook my head. If I took it, that would mean I was really saying good-bye. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t.
He pressed it into my hands and told me to think of him every time I used it. “Don’t forget what I’ve taught you. Making food always brings people together,” he said.
I ran my hands over the smooth white marble. The center of the mortar bowl was stained a golden brown from all the spices that had been crushed in there. I put it back on the counter and shook my head. I felt my body shaking. He pushed it toward me again.
“Even if you don’t take it,” he went on to say, “I will have to stay and you will have to leave. It won’t change anything.”
I grabbed it and ran out of the kitchen. I wrapped it tight in a shawl and stuffed it into my bag before Papa could see it and tell me not to carry such a heavy thing.
We were very quiet at dinner and after, as Kazi was cleaning up, Amil ran over to him and hugged him hard. Papa looked up with glassy eyes and stared at Kazi. Then Papa shooed Amil away. I couldn’t hug Kazi. I was too sad. I got up and followed Amil who ran outside to the garden. He sat on the end of the rows of spinach and tore at the leaves, stuffing a few in his mouth.
“Who’s going to eat all this spinach? Kazi won’t be able to,” he said to me.
We sat quietly for a minute or two. The sun had started to set. I could hear the rustling of birds and insects and other creatures settling into the evening. Some going to sleep, some waking.
“Do you think we’ll ever see Kazi again?” Amil asked.
I didn’t want to answer either way. I was afraid we wouldn’t. But that would be the same as Kazi dying, wouldn’t it?
“I don’t even believe we’re leaving,” I said. Then I whispered, “I feel like we’re leaving Mama, too. Because she was here in this house. But our new home. She won’t be there.”
“She isn’t here either, no matter what stupid stories you’ve made up in your head.”
“I’m not making up stories!” I yelled back at him. Amil jumped. Then I started to cry again and Amil looked away. He suddenly got up and ran back into the house. He was probably scared of me. I felt ashamed and lonely. Mama, if you were here, would you have sat next to me and held me? Would you have loved me more than all of them?
Amil came running back with a handkerchief and held it out to me. My body relaxed. I thanked him, relieved he hadn’t left me all alone. I took the kerchief and wiped my nose and eyes, my chest feeling a little lighter.
“We never knew her. What’s the point of thinking about her?” Amil said.
I nodded. It was okay that he felt that way. He must love you deep inside, but I kind of like having you all to myself. I feel like I do know you, because I know myself and you made me. I’m going to take you with me, closed up tight in this diary and in the little pouch with the dirt and your jewelry.
“I do sometimes.”
“You do think about Mama?” I said.
“A little. She looks so pretty in her picture. I bet she would have been different from—” but he stopped talking.
“Different from what?” I asked. But I knew what he was going to say, different from Papa. See Mama, he does love you. It’s just harder for him to say it. I wonder sometimes if Amil feels things as big as I do. He uses his body more to move, to talk, so everything isn’t locked up inside the way it is with me. Sometimes I wish I were Amil. Is that strange, Mama, wanting to be a boy? It just seems like it would be easier. But then I guess Papa wouldn’t like me as much.
Amil sat back down next to me and leaned against my shoulder. I could feel the warmth from his body that was always moving. He sat very still, though, as we watched the sun go down over our garden for the last time.
Love, Nisha
* * *
August 18, 1947
Dear Mama,
I’m writing this only by moonlight under my mosquito net, so forgive me if it is messy. I can barely see what I’m putting down, but I have a talent. I can write without seeing. We tried to leave this morning. The sun hadn’t even come up yet. Kazi stayed in his cottage. Before bed Kazi came to say one last good-bye to us and told us he was going to stay in his cottage when we left in the morning because it was safer.
“Until I see you again,” he said, and hugged us both. I couldn’t cry. I felt like I was a dry leaf floating in the wind wondering where I’d land. I just nodded and floated away from him. If I said good-bye, then it would be a real good-bye, a forever good-bye.
Amil once drew a picture of Kazi. It was of him in the kitchen with a towel thrown over his shoulder, chopping vegetables. Kazi looks very serious in the picture, his eyes squinting, his lips pressed together. I went into Amil’s stacks of drawings that he keeps in the corner of our room and tried to find it, but I couldn’t.
Dadi quietly woke us and we had yogurt and day-old roti without talking. Somehow everyone knew that this was not a time for talking, as if the loud words placed in the fragile air would break something. There is so much you can understand from a person’s face—the way they stare or nod or press their lips together or turn their heads to the side in a certain way. So much talking happens with no words.
We gathered our belongings and spoke with our eyes, our nods, our shrugs, our pointing fingers. I had my bag, Amil had his. We had bedrolls rolled up and strapped to our backs. Papa had loaded what he could in the covered horse carriage, Dadi’s things, his clothes, two bedrolls, a mosquito net, his medicine bag, some books, all the food and jugs of water, some pots and pans and cups, and a wrapped painting of yours. Papa didn’t show us the painting, but I know all the sizes. I think it’s my favorite one of a hand holding an egg. I always wondered if you had painted someone’s actual hand or if you imagined it. It looks like a woman’s hand. Was it Dadi’s? Was it yours? Why was it holding an egg? When I saw it in the carriage, I felt so happy. More of you would be coming with us. I also have your jewelry. I have the dirt from our home, and I have this diary.
We planned to take a carriage to the train, and we had to leave before dawn so no one would see us leaving. Papa had heard about fighting when people left. Raj and Rupesh Uncle left days ago by train and are now on the other side. They’re finding us a place to live so when we get there, we will have a home. Papa says we are very lucky and there will be many people scattered with no homes.
The hospital made Papa stay longer than he wanted to until a new doctor could come. A Muslim doctor is coming to fill Papa’s post and work with Dr. Ahmed. He will move into our home. I guess Kazi needs to stay and cook for him. I didn’t want to think about it. When Papa came home on his last day at the hospital, he only said one thing. “I hope he saves more than I did.” Then he went into his room and didn’t come out for the rest of the evening.
I kept my bag close to me because I didn’t want Papa or Dadi to feel how heavy it was because of the mortar and pestle. When we were packing yesterday, Papa made Amil bring the Mahabharata book and only a few scraps of paper and two pencils. Amil was furious that he had to take the book instead of his drawings, but Papa told him he couldn’t throw fits like a child anymore, that he was almost a man now. Amil stopped yelling and swallowed.
Then he shook his head and walked away. He went to our room and put all his drawings into one pile. He walked into the kitchen with them and begged Kazi to burn them in the stove. He said he didn’t want to leave them for anyone else to take.
Kazi took them, laid them on the table carefully, and promised Amil he’d keep them safe. He said if he left, he’d take them with him.
“No,” Amil said. “I’m almost a man.” Then he grabbed them and thrust them into the lit coal stove. He was so quick, Kazi couldn’t stop him. Amil ran outside. I stood staring at Kazi and I felt the tears come again, but I wiped them away and walked over to the stove. I watched all Amil’s drawings burn into ash. Kazi watched them, too. He put his arm around me as we watched.
“He’ll draw more. He’ll make new drawings at your new home,” he said, trying to make me feel better, but for some reason I felt like I had been stabbed in the heart.
“Amil,” I said, later in the day while Amil sat on the floor folding and unfolding a blank piece of paper. “Why?”
“They will burn here, so I might as well be here when they do.”
“But Kazi said he’d keep them. Nobody’s going to burn them.”
Amil just shook his head angrily. “We don’t know. Maybe someone will burn our house to the ground,” he said in a low voice.
“That’s not going to happen,” I said. “A new family is coming here.”
“I’d rather it burn,” Amil said to me, his eyes dark and wild.
The Night Diary Page 6