Shranya Shrivastava

India

What Makes Us Different?

“Are you learning this for someone?”, my great-grandfather, Bade Dadu, would ask my father when he found him studying English. As if language wasn’t for understanding the world, but a friend.

I was five years old when he passed away. I remember furtively opening the ornate wooden box, hiding from the world in his room. My father called it Dil ki Tijori (Vault of the Heart). As a child, I had fantasized about a pirate’s treasure. But all it embraced within were old diaries and a hand-drawn sketch.

After ten years, it hinged my curiosity, pulling me back. The diaries revealed Dadu’s memoirs as an Indian soldier posted in Italy during World War 2. After a crossfire, he had lost his comrades, but found another stranded soldier that same day—an Italian:

“Alessandro leans back and slaps his thigh when he laughs. Just like my son used to.”

“He flirts with women by boasting about his artistic flairs. Just like my friend back home.”

“He fidgets with his gun and murmurs a prayer to his God when he senses an enemy approaching.  Just like me.”

“The man is so similar that I forget we are supposed to be different.”