Six Seasons Review #Strange Kid: a Pre-teen Self Portrait

1.     'Strange Kid: a Pre-Teen Self Portrait' was published in Six Seasons Review, November 2017 issue. 

     

    Strange Kid: a pre-teen self portrait

At four, I liked to touch the soft fair and inviting stomach of my teacher (she wore saris) in between class. Watching her, I decided to teach. Age four.

I fell down because I chased a crow who flew into the sky.

At six, I was operated for a pre-auricular sinus that less than 1% people have ever heard about.

I had the mumps and the measles and could move my arms any which way making people jealous because apparently I have hyper laxity of ligaments.

At seven, when rainy day holiday was declared in school, I proceeded to study according to the school timetable without parental interference.

I was called harischandra because I stubbornly refused to ‘cheat’ or take any help offered to me during games.

At eight, I sent all of them packing to the movies and had beautiful alone times sketching, browsing memories and arranging shelves. I did not want them to return. (I had some defect so could not understand the movies, that’s a secret. Shhh.)

I asked my teacher to let me teach the class. I dreamt of the school I planned to open.  I also discovered the migraine devils.

At nine, I wrote an entire novel. Real Enid Blyton style. More like bad plagiarism of real Enid Blyton style.

At ten, during two months vacations, I did the whole poetry and creative writing section of Wren and Martin without knowing who either Tennyson or Browning was. My parents have little idea. Please do not tattletale.

Oh, and I fell in love with Anne Shirley of Green Gables. I collected bird feathers, butterfly wings, and made cake and ice cream for birds with my cousin sister.

I never read comics or watched movies. I was a strange kid.

I spent all class six recess times making notes about birds from library books. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t have friends. Nobody knows. Shhh.

I deliberately flunked my class seven computer science half yearly to teach the teacher a lesson. My first protest.

Age twelve I also fell in long long love with my teacher. She happened to be a woman.

The strange kid grew up into a strange adolescent and a strange adult but then life became too complicated to tell. Also, they say it’s rude to dry dirty linen in public.