The Night Diary

by Veera Hiranandani

Are you happy that we will be staying with Rashid Uncle? I wonder if he is happy we are coming? Why didn’t he ever try to see us? Is it because Papa told us we are Hindu and not both Muslim and Hindu after you died? Can you be both? Sometimes I don’t really feel like anything, not Hindu, not Muslim. Is that a bad thing to feel? Papa told me Gandhiji believes we are everything anyway. I guess that makes the most sense to me. If everyone felt that way, we would have stayed in our home, a whole country, safe and truly free. I want to know what Rashid Uncle thinks of us, Mama. Tell me, soon, somehow. Dadi is very tired now. She’s lying by the fire, asleep before anyone. She drinks water, but eats no food. Amil asked Papa if she was sick, and I leaned in to hear the answer. “She’s old. This trip’s too hard for her,” Papa said in his way that isn’t really answering anything.