美国国家公共电台 NPR Partition, Through A Child's Eyes, In 'The Night Diary'

 

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

"The Night Diary" is a novel set at a pivotal and bloody¹ moment in history, written in the voice of a 12-year-old girl. Nisha takes us on her personal journey as part of the mass exodus² of Hindus and Muslims in the turbulent time when India was broken up to allow for the creation of Pakistan. Nisha's story is told through her journal, letters she writes to the mother she never knew who died at the birth of Nisha and her twin brother. Veera Hiranandani is the author of this young adult novel and joins us to talk about it. Welcome.

VEERA HIRANANDANI: Thank you so much for having me.

MONTAGNE: And, you know, I gather that this is a journey that you know well from family stories.

HIRANANDANI: Yes, I do. So my father went through Partition when he was 9. And he had to leave his home with his mother, his father and his five siblings³. Basically, they packed what they could and got on a train and left for the new border of India.

MONTAGNE: And this was a tough journey for many people. And tough maybe doesn't even begin to sum it up.

HIRANANDANI: Sure. Yeah. One to 2 million people died. But it was also the largest human migration⁴ in world history. So around 14 million people migrated during this time, which is pretty staggering.

MONTAGNE: Yes. And it's known as simply Partition. It's 1947. It's the birth of both India and Pakistan. Nisha's mother was Muslim.

HIRANANDANI: Yes.

MONTAGNE: Her father is Hindu. And in the 1920s and '30s, when they would have met as teenagers, their marriage would have been just about unheard of.

HIRANANDANI: Yes, it certainly is rare to have happened at that time. But it did happen. And part of the reason I wanted to do that is that I am from a mixed background. So my father is Hindu, and my mother was born in this country, and she's Jewish. And having multiple identities was something I have always been navigating⁵. But I wanted Nisha to be from a mixed background not only for my own personal connection, but it allowed me to explore her own sense of belonging during this time. And it allowed me to open up and break through some of the bias⁶ and explore the questions I had about that time.

MONTAGNE: The divide between the two religions haunts this story. Nisha can't understand, for one thing, why she can't be both. But tell us about her most tender relationship with an adult, and he is the family cook. And he is Muslim.

HIRANANDANI: Yes. You know, her father's a doctor. He's very busy, pretty reserved. And she doesn't have a mother. And Kazi really functions almost as this mother and father and friend for her because she's lonely in that way.

MONTAGNE: And they cook together.

HIRANANDANI: Yes. Yes, they do.

MONTAGNE: It's very sweet. And he knew her mother.

HIRANANDANI: Yes. And he bit by bit sort of shares that with her. Also, he introduces her to cooking and ignites her love of food. And that is a way for her to express herself because she's very shy, and it's something that she struggles with.

MONTAGNE: Partition forces this little family out of their home and school, their lovely garden. And they set off on to the border into this hellish world. I mean, there's a moment when Amil, her brother, seems to be dying of thirst.

HIRANANDANI: Yes. Many people died of thirst and hunger. Many people walked. Many people took trains. And the trains were an incredibly dangerous and violent place, where, at times, trains were attacked by the other side going in both directions. This happened, where everybody was killed on the train, and it would arrive at the station full of dead people. So I touched upon that in the novel. At the same time, I didn't want to traumatize a young reader. And I feel like sometimes as adults - I'm a parent - we want to protect young people from that. But they're incredibly curious. So I felt like it was OK to open up some of the truth of that pain and some of the truth of that violence because I know when I was younger and when I was curious, sometimes it was harder to have these questions - that things that felt really scary - to have them hidden. And then they stayed mysterious. And somehow, that mystery made it even more frightening.

MONTAGNE: Let me ask you to read part of this time that they have spent in the desert, when Nisha has a vision of her long-dead mother. Read us a little bit of that.

HIRANANDANI: (Reading) I see you now walking with us, a red and gold scarf blowing behind you. You are the most beautiful person here on this dry, sad path. It's like we're all the color of dust, and you are gold and rich brown in red and purple with dark-lined eyes and shiny, red lips. You glow. I see the flash of your golden earrings⁷. I hear the jingle⁸ of your bangles. You are here, and I'm following you, Mama. You will take us to Rashid Uncle. And you will take us to our new home.

MONTAGNE: It's like her mother is saving them. This is a young adult novel. How do you hope Nisha's story will resonate for other young girls who read this book?

HIRANANDANI: Well, I hope it resonates on a few levels. I think kids that I know in my area - they learn about what a refugee is. But I don't know if they always have a specific sense of what that means for an individual person going through this. So I hope that readers will see that Nisha is a 12-year-old girl who loves her home, has a complicated relationship with her father, loves her brother. And also, they fight. And she wonders what's for dinner. And she does all of these things that I think most 12-year-olds could relate to.

And another aspect that I hope readers would take away from is that Nisha really doesn't understand how brave she is. And it takes her a long time to understand how brave it is during a time of adversity that she hangs on to that hope. And because she comes from this mixed background, she doesn't understand why people separate themselves in the way that they do. And that certainly is resonating today more than I even expected when I started writing this novel years ago.

MONTAGNE: Veera Hiranandani's new book is called "The Night Diary." Thanks very much for joining us.

HIRANANDANI: It was a pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF TONY ELMAN, ET AL.'S "MINNOW DANCE")

1 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

2 exodus   

v.大批离去，成群外出

参考例句：

• The medical system is facing collapse because of an exodus of doctors.由于医生大批离去，医疗系统面临崩溃。
• Man's great challenge at this moment is to prevent his exodus from this planet.人在当前所遇到的最大挑战，就是要防止人从这个星球上消失。

3 siblings   

n.兄弟，姐妹( sibling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A triplet sleeps amongst its two siblings. 一个三胞胎睡在其两个同胞之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has no way of tracking the donor or her half-siblings down. 她没办法找到那个捐精者或她的兄弟姐妹。 来自时文部分

4 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

5 navigating   

v.给（船舶、飞机等）引航，导航( navigate的现在分词 )；（从海上、空中等）横越；横渡；飞跃

参考例句：

• These can also be very useful when navigating time-based documents, such as video and audio. 它对于和时间有关的文档非常有用，比如视频和音频文档。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Vehicles slowed to a crawl on city roads, navigating slushy snow. 汽车在市区路上行驶缓慢，穿越泥泞的雪地。 来自互联网

6 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

7 earrings   

n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子

参考例句：

• a pair of earrings 一对耳环
• These earrings snap on with special fastener. 这付耳环是用特制的按扣扣上去的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 jingle   

n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵

参考例句：

• The key fell on the ground with a jingle.钥匙叮当落地。
• The knives and forks set up their regular jingle.刀叉发出常有的叮当声。