Fictitious Account of Secret Grandmother

I never knew I had a secret grandmother- one who didn't exist in paintings or photographs but who painted and took photographs. I never dreamed we had secrets tucked under saris in the dusty attic or that I had a grandmother who hated wearing them. 

I didn't know that she was tempestuous and stubborn but also sometimes quiet and kind. I didn't know  she liked films, especially the quiet kind , the black and white kind and her favourite was- well, they never told me so I don't know. 

I do know she was haughty and proud like a peacock. She had elongated, oriental-esque eyes, and a square jaw. She hated her nose for it was large, sharp and unapologetically Semitic. 

They didn't tell me she was named Rachel, nor that she was Dreyfuss. She was born in New Delhi but you'd guess either Tel Aviv or Nepal, depending on the lighting. They said never to say her last name, or speak of her at school. 

This made her certainly very cool to the 10 year old me.  

They gossiped because she was Jewish and not therefore, Indian at all. My mother had her nose, and I had her spirit. She was intelligent and a writer and teacher and a poet. 

I found her diary under some saris and the first line screamed that she was 'DONE. Absolutely, irrevocably done.'

She longed to visit Palestine- some sweetheart whom she had left behind. Was he alright? She couldn't remember his name exactly, something Arabic. Had he survived the partition?

She was the secret grandmother, I never knew. The secrets to which I bid adieu.