![]() "Ten when going and seven coming back."Įvery few months, Ishaan finds a new obsession. It's a stupid question and I am not expecting an answer. How many buses does he see from his favourite bus? Roughly, I say. Later, he clarifies: his favourite route is actually the 108 from Lewisham to Stratford, which he travels on to school. What is his favourite bus route? "The whole world," he says, somewhat tangentially. Which are best, buses or trains? "Buses," Ishaan answers incisively. "And I can see National Rail from the kitchen." He runs into the kitchen to demonstrate. "I can see DLR trains from there," he points to the front window. Where did his interest come from? Does he see buses from their south London flat? "I can see buses from other buses," Ishaan trills in a singsong voice. So far, Ishaan's talent has taken him on to BBC Breakfast and ITV News, but he hasn't found the media coverage too demanding. It was not easy for him, Jay says, because, while Ishaan has a reading age of at least seven, there were some difficult location names to read. Just over six months ago, their only child, Ishaan, developed a thing for London buses and memorised more than 600 bus routes across the capital. Jay is a business development manager for an IT company. Jay and Sonali Yewale moved to London from Mumbai 10 years ago for Sonali's job at Citigroup. How long have you been a bus fanatic? "The last five years," says Ishaan, sitting in front of a laptop looking at Transport for London bus maps. Ishaan Yewale: 'I can see buses from other buses.' Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian Sometimes it doesn't come out as 'bored' – it comes out as causing trouble at the back of the class." Ishaan Yewale, 5, has memorised more than 600 London bus routes "I guess I worry if she gets bored at school. "As she gets older, perhaps I will need to look at it again," Charlotte says. While Charlotte has a few reservations about this "child-led" learning – "There's a bit of me that thinks it's a nursery, you're teachers, you could be doing something more with her" – she plans for Karina to attend her local primary school, along with her friends. She shows off a chocolate tray, decorated with tissue and paper: a butterfly feeding table. I don't think any adult is ever going to go, 'Damn, I didn't do my GCSEs aged nine'." So Karina goes to a local nursery and spends much of her time "junk modelling". "What every parent wants for their children is to give them a happy, balanced, enjoyable childhood. Stories of home-schooled geeks scare her. She does not know from where her linguistic precocity comes: Charlotte was adept at science, she says, and Karina's father, Nick (from whom Charlotte is separated), was good at physics and maths. Shown a picture of a glove that was lacking one finger and asked what was missing, she said the other glove.Ĭharlotte found it "reassuring" to discover that Karina was not suffering from some "really weird way of thinking". Shown a picture of a teapot without a handle and asked what was missing, she said the picnic mat. "Karina has an unusual air of maturity in one so young," said Professor Joan Freeman and, in a careful report pointing out the shortcomings of IQ tests in very young people, suggested that she had an IQ of 160 – said to be the same as Stephen Hawking's – which placed her in the top 0.03% of children of her age.Īsked in these tests what we do with our eyes, Karina said we put contact lenses in them. But after a helper at the church creche noticed Karina's "incredible" imagination, Charlotte found a child psychologist on the internet and, a year ago, took her daughter to London for an IQ test. "Everybody she came into contact with would say, my goodness, how old is she?"Ĭharlotte thinks it is "a bit rotten" to compare Karina with friends' children "because they all develop in their own way and you don't want to be this competitive mum". "As soon as she started talking, it was like this massive word explosion," Charlotte says. They live, the two of them, with Truffles the cat, in Surrey. Now he's come back to play with his friends." I'll give him some special horse medicine," she says. Karina places Sandy in a bed she has made from Fuzzy Felt. Except for Sandy, that is, a small plastic creature with a wounded leg. "All of my horses are called Athena," announces Karina.
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