In Mumbai Yash was taking care of Ansh and PayPal. Ansh and Palak were pretty much independent in doing their homework. Payal however needed her mumma to guide her while she worked on her homework. Today as Yash worked with her, tears of frustration were forming in 7.5 year old Payal's eyes. Yash had read the question twice to her.
Yash: Seven plus nine minus five equals what?
Payal (all flustered): Seven plus nine, papa?
Yash nodded a yes. Payal, quickly looked down at her fingers and began counting them, unfisting her hand finger by finger.
Payal (in a hesitant voice): Fifteen, papa.
Yash (in a distressed voice): Payal beta, its sixteen.
Payal: Papa, I did count sixteen. But when I was going to say it, I... I... thought it is wrong... and so, I did not say it.
Yash hugged Payal wordlessly while hiding his frustration. He realized Payal was losing her self-confidence. They had been at it for almost 2 hours now. It was just a series of incorrect answers or correct answer with the wrong steps. Now her brain was starting to fry and he was at the end of his tether.
Yash: Payal beta let us take a ten minute break and then we will do some reading. OK my rajkumari?
Payal nodded a yes.
Yash was perplexed. He wondered what made it so hard for his little rajkumari to understand simple addition and subtraction. She had written down her homework for the day. He had seen her notebook. Her notes were clear – she had written the tricks to keep the counting straight. But there were several spelling errors and sometimes she would write the same word four, five or six times.
He had noticed that she often misinterpreted numbers when he said:
68, or
24.
In her mind she would interpret it as
48, and
26.
Yash had noticed that Payal's problems with numbers extended to history as well. Her dates were all messed up. So instead of saying that "We achieved independence in 1947" she would say "in 1497". When he told her she was saying it wrong, she just looked at him with eyebrows knit and all perplexed … as if asking 'huh?'.
Yash sighed – next was reading. He had no idea what was going on and hoped that her reading would be better.
Yash: Chalo beta back to work; ten minutes are up sweetheart.
Payal unenthusiastically nodded her head and walked with him back upstairs. Picking up the English Reader he turned to the assignment page and handed the book to her.
Yash: Read it out loud to me.
Payal struggled. Ten minutes had gone by and she was still working through the first paragraph. She labored to read the words and often skipped words and parts of sentences. It was clearly frustrating her.
Yash: Payal beta can we try something different?
Payal nodded a yes.
Yash: Beta why don't you read silently to yourself. And, after you are done I will read you the questions?
Payal: Papa, you do not understand. The letters are all jumbled because they keep floating around!! It takes me so long to read because it is like… like... the letters are walking. I really have to think very hard to figure out what word is written.
Yash took the book from her and looked at the pages. Everything looked fine to him. There were no misspells and the font was of medium size. Did she need glasses or was it because it was English and not Hindi? Anyways he decided he needed to make sure if she understood the words first.
Yash: Beta I will read out loud, and then ask you the questions? Is that OK?
Payal nodded a silent yes.
After reading the assignment passage, Yash asked Payal the homework questions. Payal answered all the questions correctly with ease. Her reading of the Hindi primer was no better, Yash wondered what is going on inside Payal's mind.
This was the third day of homework 'problems' he had with her. At first he thought it was Aarti's absence that was bothering her but now he was sure it was something else.
Two days after the above homework problems Yash had taken Payal to a doctor to see what was going on in Payal's brain. The doctor had a notion of what was wrong however he decided to talk with Yash after the test results were made available.
Later that week, a nurse from the doctor's office had phoned and asked him and Payal to pay the doctor a visit as the test scores had come in. Now they were back in the Mumbai beach house after the visit to the doctor.
Payal had remained silent through the ride back home and even now was silently sitting holding on to her teddy bear.
Yash: Sweetheart, what's up?
Yash was gently trying to break the ice.
Payal: The doctor said I was different. He said I have dys… dys… whatever!
Yash: Dyslexia.
Payal: Yeah, so maybe I should drop out of school?
Payal had a resigned expression on her face.
Yash: I do not think so, my sweet Rajkumari. You are different because you have an amazing brain. Do you know what dyslexia is beta?
Yash held her (teddy bear and all) in a tight hug for a moment and then kissed the top of her forehead.
Payal: Really papa, am I smart? What is dys…lek..sia?
Yash: Yes beta, you are smart. It is just that right now you need help from mumma and me for doing gannit (math) and reading. I will get you a special computer game to help you read and do math. And do you know what else the doctor said?
Payal (now beaming with the knowledge that she is smart): Nah, tell me.
Yash: The doctor said you are a linguistic learner. That means if I read out aloud you would understand.
Payal nodded that she understood.
Yash: Beta you are good with words and have a terrific memory. See how quickly you learnt to speak Marathi and how well you remember all the words of songs?
Again, Payal nodded and smiled confidently.
Yash: Beta, you are very talented musically. I am very proud that you taught yourself to play the piano and can even play a few songs!
Now Payal turned and hugged Yash and softly said: I love you papa.
Yash heaved a sigh. Paridhi had turned on her CD player and Payal began singing along not missing a word.
Yash ruffled her head and let her run out to play. He was proud of Payal's endeavors and how Aarti had instinctively been working on her strengths. He knew that they would work through this and set up a new study plan for Payal. He sent a silent prayer thanking God that Payal had taken after Aarti in that she never gave up; when something got in her way she either thought it out or just pushed her way through until she was on the other side.
Yash reached out to his cell phone to call Aarthi all the while smiling at the sounds of Payal's sing-along.
Sampoorna
Bindi
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