She said to a friend many years later, who had asked her how she began writing poetry:
"I read a lot. My father loved poetry. My grandpa loved to read to me. They started reading to me when I was only four years old. Then I began reading myself. I read whatever I got my hands on them; and somehow I needed to discharge all those knowledge. I don't know what I wrote those days were poetries or not, but I like to think they were. They were reflection of me. They were me. They were sincere and simple, not complete, because I was not complete myself. I had not yet found my style and and myself in the world of my feelings and thoughts."
One time at school, her composition teacher accused her that she could not had written what the teacher read. She added even "no way". She even blamed Neda that she had stolen that writing perhaps from some books. Neda was so offended that she did not know how to defend herself. It was the teacher's word against the word of a twelve yeas old girl. She was so frightened that she even did not tell her parents about it. She had sleepless nights. The next time she saw that teacher, she simply told her:
"If you don't believe that I wrote that composition, why don't you give me any subject you want and I write about it right here in front of you!"
The teacher did. She did not like to be challenged by a tiny girl. Neda wrote ten pages of her best writings yet in front of the teacher and handed it to her. She got high marks for it. The whole school found out about it. Even the principal got involved. Everyone supported her; nevertheless, she simply began hating that teacher and that class. Her parents never discovered about it. She only told her brother, Sohrab.
One thing changed her life forever though. It also changed the lives of the entire family. Her father was in love with another woman half his age. The commotion caused by this was more than what Neda could handle. This was after the death of grandpa, so she had no place to go, to escape the screaming match between her father and mother. Her father's openness about his affair and her mother's submission made her think that she was in love, too. She got married at age sixteen mostly for just getting away from that turmoil in the house; so that was how she thought.
The day she found out her father's unfaithfulness to her mother, she was fifteen. The disarray this exposure had made was more devastating than any thing she knew in her short life. That was a sad day, an inauspicious day. She just had heard the news that her first poem would be published by a magazine. As overwhelmed as she was, she heard the other news. The thrill lost its glory. She would quit writing if everything would go back to the way they were. She wrote a poem when the yelling and screaming and fighting between her mother and father finally subsided. She named it "LOST SOUL".
"Walking among the walkers, confined.
Looking among the observers, blind.
So much sadness in me, and I'm voiceless.
So much uproar at my side, and I'm spiritless.
In my thoughts, no more feelings or passion.
In my heart, no more thrill or compassion.
I'm a vast field without green.
I'm a tall mountain without sheen.
Inside me burned so much light.
Now they're sea of sadness in my sight.
Old and bitter story is my friend.
I'm the walker at dusk to the end.
The wave of darkness and silence,
Draw life out of me like suspense.
I walk among the walkers, confined.
I count the homes I've left behind.
I look among observers, blind.
I hear the sound of life, undefined."
To Be Continued
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