Nisha and her family leave their home in Mirpur Khas by foot, hoping to reach a relative’s house and then go on to a train station to board a train which will take them to the ‘new’ India, since the ‘old’ India has been partitioned into India and Pakistan.
Section 3 includes Nisha’s letters from August 15th, 1947 until August 20th, 1947. Before long, Papa hosts a party at their house and Nisha enjoys herself thoroughly until she realizes, near the end, that it is a goodbye party and that her life will never be the same again now that Papa has decided to relocate their family. Nisha realizes that everything she thought she knew about her town is changing as people begin to identify themselves based on their ethnic identities. They witness a break-in at their house which leaves everyone shaken and Kazi injured. Nisha and Amil are forbidden from attending school due to the political situation in their town, and are bored at home. Section 2 includes Nisha’s letters from July 30th, 1947 until August 7th, 1947. The children learn of the political turmoil beginning to affect India and their town, and they face bullying from students who identify them as ‘Hindu’ despite the fact that they are half-Muslim. Both of the children are very close to their cook, Kazi, and both of them experience difficulties fitting in in different ways. Amil is Nisha’s twin and has a turbulent relationship with Papa, although Nisha knows that Papa just wants Amil to try harder at school. It introduces Nisha and her family and the relationships between them. Section 1 includes Nisha’s letters from Juntil July 29, 1947.
Nisha’s first entry in her diary begins with a letter on her twelfth birthday and, as the weeks pass, her entries begin to write not only of her personal struggles with shyness but also of her deeper fears of partition in India.
Their Muslim mother passed away at their birth, and Nisha writes to her mother in the diary which lends this book its title. Nisha and her twin brother live with their Hindu father, Papa their grandmother, Dadi and their cook, Kazi. The Night Diary is an epistolary novel which recounts the partition of India into two separate countries, India and Pakistan, through the eyes of a twelve-year-old half-Hindu and half-Muslim girl named Nisha. The following version of this book was used to make the guide: Hiranandani, Veera.