Papa pretending, Papa and Mama pretending together, here in this house. She’d even dip her fingers in the curry so her nails would be yellowed from the turmeric.’ ‘Before he hired me, he did all the cooking for your mama, and when they had guests, they’d pretend she did the cooking. Papa doesn’t even make his own tea, I thought. I want to be like you, Mama, but I can’t understand anyone who forgets about food. 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.

She had to be reminded to eat, she was that sort,’ he said, and put the stick back in his mouth.

She’d go off to the back of the house and paint and paint. Kazi shook his head, taking the stick out of his mouth. Kazi chopped onions holding a wooden stick between his teeth so he wouldn’t cry. As soon as they broke under the weight of the pestle, I smelled the warm, soapy scent of them. 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. I hardly ask him to tell me about you, though, because I’m afraid that the stories might run out. Kazi tells me stories about you once in a while.

There’s something there that - there’s a tremendous hatred there. While this allows her to grow as she tries to speak to Hafa, she ultimately endangers the family and forces them to leave Rashid Uncle's for the harrowing train ride that will take them to 'new India,' to Jodhpur.“I think Islam hates us. With courage from this connection, Nisha befriends the Muslim neighbor girl she sees playing in the nearby yard. Being in the home where her mother grew up, Nisha comes to know her better, making connections with the paintings she left behind. Together in the kitchen, they cook for the family, nursing Dadi back to health. Once they are safely hidden in Rashid Uncle's home, Nisha's world expands again as she makes a connection with her uncle, who has a cleft lip and does not speak. As the family nears Umerkot, where Rashid Uncle lives in Nisha's mother's childhood home, they face danger once again, this time at knifepoint. Hiranandani's writing, in the voice of Nisha, is vivid and intense, especially when she is describing the challenge of traveling on foot, facing extreme thirst.

The night diary