I Hear a Song in My Head by Tejani Nergesh;

Author:Tejani, Nergesh;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs
ISBN: 9780985569846
Publisher: New Academia Publishing, LLC
Published: 2012-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

Rushna goes to school

At the ripe old age of two, Rushna was enrolled into Mrs. Jones’ School—never dignified by a formal name. Rushna met her milestones at an accelerated rate—to put it modestly. At nine months, when she had lived an equal span of life within and without the womb, she said her first word. Not adoring mama or dada, but ‘outside.’ She evidently thought this was a good solution for all tensions. With the friendly equable weather of Kampala, ‘outside’ was always possible. Although in theory we had a short rain and a long rain, in actuality each day had a little sun, a little rain, a little this and a little that, always hovering around a glorious 75 degrees. I dread to think of a dead-of-winter ‘outside’ North American baby.

I can hardly remember when Rushna was not potty trained, and Siu Fun’s pink potty was her favorite. One day on a weekday when we were home for lunch and sitting across from each other in the tiny living room, Rushna, all of ten months old, was standing next to me and just decided to walk over to Amir. Just as he walked on air when she was born, he sang to himself, ‘Shadlu chali, shadlu chali’—‘She walked, she walked.’ And there he was, walking on air again. So Rushna walked at ten months and read at two years, but I have to add that she rebelled and tore our hearts in an alien space at sixteen and then returned and befriended me at twenty-one. And ever after.

One day back when she was a toddler I gave her a tiny sturgeon egg that she licked off my finger. The next day I asked her what she wanted for dinner and she said ‘cabiar.’ Enough, we thought, she is ready for school.

So on the appointed day I drove her to Mrs. Jones’ School which Mrs. Ginny Jones had started in the spacious garage of her hillside home. She was young, energetic and enthusiastic, but it was impossibly difficult to leave Rushna. I drew it out till Mrs. Jones practically threw me out. I walked down the driveway, and then something made me turn and I saw Rushna’s dark serious dry large painful eyes on me. I left, but only after she had imprinted her eyes on my heart. It was a memorable event—the beginning of long years of learning. The beginnings of the fastest and most prolific reader there ever was. The beginnings of a facile understanding and a liberal heart.

School was a success, and she stopped giving me the dark eye when I left.

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