In the first drafts, the protagonist was a young male character, like my father as a child, but I felt like I wasn't able to access that character enough, he wasn't becoming real enough to me. “I didn't know if I could take it on I’m not a historian, I didn't know if I could do it justice, I was intimidated and nervous, but the drive to write about it persisted. “The book came together through trial-and-error,” Hiranandani explained. “As a writer, I wanted to figure out how to frame this story for younger readers, “ she said, “My father was 9 when he went through Partition, so the memories I heard from him were childlike.” Hiranandani conducted historical research as she prepared to write the novel, but she also drew inspiration from her father, now 80, and his personal memories of Partition from his early childhood.

I wondered why we weren’t doing those things in my family.” While spending time with them in their homes, I’d see and observe things specific to Indian culture, and I’d go to temple with them sometimes. A lot of my Indian cousins had two Indian parents and more solidly identified as Hindus. “As I got older, I wanted to know more about the Indian side of my family,” said Hiranandani, “but it felt easier to focus on what we all had in common, which was being an American in Connecticut. Her grappling with identity and place of belonging in a rapidly changing world is one Hiranandani can relate to, herself the daughter of a Hindu father and Jewish-American mother. Throughout the novel, Nisha questions what this heritage makes her. Hiranandani’s protagonist, Nisha, faces a unique challenge to her identity: her father is Hindu, but her late mother was Muslim. I always knew Partition was something that had happened to my family, but I hadn’t realized how huge the event was on a global scale, and I was shocked as I began to reflect on it,” said Hiranandani.

“When I was 11, I watched the movie Gandhi, which was pivotal for me. Violence, chaos, and tragedy plagued the countless travelers as their paths crisscrossed over a border which appeared overnight. Hindus and other non-Muslims living in Pakistan and Muslims living in India prior to independence were pushed to migrate to their new, respective homes as a sovereign India and a newborn Pakistan established themselves on the world stage. India’s independence brought about the formation of a new nation, Pakistan, carved out of northwestern India as a new homeland for Indian Muslims, leaving the rest of India to Hindus, Sikhs, and other non-Muslim Indians.

The night diary by veera hiranandani