describe the house without the people
in it. Probably what I have said is just how your father describes it anyway.
You should come and see it for yourself.
Your loving cousin,
Anjali x
When I finish reading I realize that my heart is beating too fast. It’s strange how close I feel to Grandad, Mum and Anjali reading these words. I scan over the same lines
again and again and, as I read, my guilt for taking these letters starts to simmer up into anger that Mum wanted to keep all of this from me when she was asking the same questions herself!
Grandad used to talk to me all the time about his childhood in the house in Doctor’s Lane. When he knew he was too ill to fly to India he told me that the place he would have liked to go
to more than any other was his old home. ‘You should go there, Mira; it was a beautiful house,’ he said.
‘Are you OK in there?’ calls Anjali through the bathroom door.
‘Fine!’ I shout back, jumping up and shoving everything back into my bag. I turn on the taps to pretend I’m washing my hands, hang the bag on the hook on the back of the door
and then step out into the bedroom.
‘I’ve just got to pop down to the refuge. Won’t be more than an hour. It’s very safe here. Manu’s wife is only downstairs and Bacha’s guarding the door!
Unless you want to come with me?’
‘I’ll be fine here,’ I reassure her. All I can think about is getting back to the letters.
I climb on the bed to look out of the high window and watch Anjali walk quickly down the stairs, appearing and disappearing, until she reaches the street below, where the
golden-brown cow is still ambling around. It’s so strange that in the middle of a city like this, with all the cars and shiny glass buildings and technology, cows still wander the
streets.
Now that I’m here I’m starting to feel closer to the stories Grandad used to tell me. Like the time he talked about Partition, when the British left India and there was so much chaos
and bloodshed that all the medical students were sent to treat the wounded passengers fleeing their old homes and coming in off the trains to Howrah station. I’ll never forget the way he
described helping a woman in one of the carriages to give birth, and there were people around her already dead, and then she died and Grandad carried the baby out into the city to an orphanage. He
said that the pavements smelt of blood. He remembered everything in so much detail it was as if it had happened yesterday. ‘I often wonder what happened to that baby,’ was the way that
Grandad always used to end that story.
I know that it’s really gruesome of me, but knowing that my Grandad was connected to that moment in history made me want to read everything I could about Partition and Indian Independence
from the British. I wouldn’t have known so much about it otherwise, because it’s not like they teach you about it in school. Sometimes I think about what it must have been like for his
family in India, when Grandad married an English-woman and stayed in Britain instead of coming back home.
Nana Kath’s told me all sorts of stories about how difficult it was for them to marry in Britain, how the priest wouldn’t marry a Hindu man in a church and what a shock it was for
her parents at first that she married a ‘foreigner’. She also tells me that gradually Grandad charmed everyone. I can believe that.
I think these stories about where you come from and the history of your own family help you to see where you stand in the world. I suppose it’s because of Jidé telling me about what
happened to his family in Rwanda that made me understand him better. I think I have a right to know about what happened in my own family and reading these letters seems the only way to do it,
seeing as no one will tell me the truth.
As Manu’s Ambassador turns the corner I step off the bed, lock myself in the bathroom again and open a thin pale blue airmail envelope addressed
in it. Probably what I have said is just how your father describes it anyway.
You should come and see it for yourself.
Your loving cousin,
Anjali x
When I finish reading I realize that my heart is beating too fast. It’s strange how close I feel to Grandad, Mum and Anjali reading these words. I scan over the same lines
again and again and, as I read, my guilt for taking these letters starts to simmer up into anger that Mum wanted to keep all of this from me when she was asking the same questions herself!
Grandad used to talk to me all the time about his childhood in the house in Doctor’s Lane. When he knew he was too ill to fly to India he told me that the place he would have liked to go
to more than any other was his old home. ‘You should go there, Mira; it was a beautiful house,’ he said.
‘Are you OK in there?’ calls Anjali through the bathroom door.
‘Fine!’ I shout back, jumping up and shoving everything back into my bag. I turn on the taps to pretend I’m washing my hands, hang the bag on the hook on the back of the door
and then step out into the bedroom.
‘I’ve just got to pop down to the refuge. Won’t be more than an hour. It’s very safe here. Manu’s wife is only downstairs and Bacha’s guarding the door!
Unless you want to come with me?’
‘I’ll be fine here,’ I reassure her. All I can think about is getting back to the letters.
I climb on the bed to look out of the high window and watch Anjali walk quickly down the stairs, appearing and disappearing, until she reaches the street below, where the
golden-brown cow is still ambling around. It’s so strange that in the middle of a city like this, with all the cars and shiny glass buildings and technology, cows still wander the
streets.
Now that I’m here I’m starting to feel closer to the stories Grandad used to tell me. Like the time he talked about Partition, when the British left India and there was so much chaos
and bloodshed that all the medical students were sent to treat the wounded passengers fleeing their old homes and coming in off the trains to Howrah station. I’ll never forget the way he
described helping a woman in one of the carriages to give birth, and there were people around her already dead, and then she died and Grandad carried the baby out into the city to an orphanage. He
said that the pavements smelt of blood. He remembered everything in so much detail it was as if it had happened yesterday. ‘I often wonder what happened to that baby,’ was the way that
Grandad always used to end that story.
I know that it’s really gruesome of me, but knowing that my Grandad was connected to that moment in history made me want to read everything I could about Partition and Indian Independence
from the British. I wouldn’t have known so much about it otherwise, because it’s not like they teach you about it in school. Sometimes I think about what it must have been like for his
family in India, when Grandad married an English-woman and stayed in Britain instead of coming back home.
Nana Kath’s told me all sorts of stories about how difficult it was for them to marry in Britain, how the priest wouldn’t marry a Hindu man in a church and what a shock it was for
her parents at first that she married a ‘foreigner’. She also tells me that gradually Grandad charmed everyone. I can believe that.
I think these stories about where you come from and the history of your own family help you to see where you stand in the world. I suppose it’s because of Jidé telling me about what
happened to his family in Rwanda that made me understand him better. I think I have a right to know about what happened in my own family and reading these letters seems the only way to do it,
seeing as no one will tell me the truth.
As Manu’s Ambassador turns the corner I step off the bed, lock myself in the bathroom again and open a thin pale blue airmail envelope addressed
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