THE IQ TEST

THE IQ TEST

“Are you sure Rhea?” asks my mother.

“Of Course I’m. Survival of the fittest, mother. I’m not going against Darwin. Also I don’t want unnecessary scars on my body.”

It’s known fact that we are all born to die. And frankly I don’t understand why it has to be made into such a big deal. If it were not for my mother I would have said that to bunch of people outside my house, some of them with young kids, shouting slogans, waving placards, literally wanting me to cut one of my beating hearts out, “Save a life. Donate!” they shout.

For someone who is one in billions, 7.125 billion to be exact, I expect to be treated better. Scientists are still befuddled regarding my condition that gave me two hearts in my mother’s womb. But years of research and sticking needles into me have led them nowhere and they have labelled me as freak mutation. It’s so rare- literally one in all human kind that they didn’t even name the anomaly (as they call it, I will call it awesomeness). I wanted to name the condition myself, something on the lines of Rhea’s Heartsawesome but doctor’s aren’t thrilled with the suggestion. Instead they want to cut one of them out and save a life. Huh?

An IQ of 180, increased concentration, exceptional athleticism and a phenomenal metabolism rate are just the few boring benefits of increased blood circulation. Why would I ever give that up?

But I don’t understand why it is difficult for my mother to decipher my wishes. As the last resort, so that I could change my resolve, my mother signed the consent form for my counselling. Seven days more and I would have the power to autograph these medical consents myself as I would be turning into a legal adult under the Indian constitution but for now I had no options except to meet any random Tom, Dick and Harry for next few days. The good part is I have to delt with him alone, without my mother being beside me. With the refined spiteful skills I posses it won’t take me much long to drive him crazy, after all I have a reputation that precedes my physical presence.

On the first day of my counselling I waited for him in his chambers of secret. He was late and it was enough ground for me to bring him under the thumb. But then something unexpected happened. Contrary to the monotonous portrait of my pot bellied, thick glasses wearing and almost balding doctors, he breezed in as the great Christian Grey freshly out of the ‘Fifty shades of Grey’. My dual pumping mechanism that provided surplus stock to my body was shying away and with his each approaching step I was turning pale.

For first time in my lifetime, I felt the disadvantage of having two beating hearts in my chest, the deafening trepidation they made at sighting that Greek God, was echoing in those four walls. For first time in my lifetime, the doppelganger embarrassed me.

He smiled with those pink lotus lips and softly poured out words from it, “Oh! Not your fault, I get that often... I mean I am a Psychoanalyst; people do get self conscious around me. Have some water, you will feel fine.”

Mama mia! Such an ostentatious display of cockiness that too in front of the sarcasm queen, I wonder how could he survive those lines in my reign. If it wasn’t for those enthralling, enchanting and enticing brown eyes that shut away all my kick-ass, smart wits, snidely centres of my grey cells, jamming my impromptu impulses of cerebral cortex, I would have shown him my true colors. But the irony is I liked my displayed dumbness.

Before he could pour out more nectar from those poised lips (Damn! I was turning into Shakespeare!), his cellular started ringing. A series of taciturn ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and he was on his feet again, all geared up to retrace the path which he entered. Disconnecting his phone and connecting those intense eyes with mine he said, “You are sweating. The thermostat is misbalanced. Let’s take an overnight time; you get your equilibrated I will get the air conditioning of the room over checked.” He sneered on my face and just walked away. I knew for sure it was the emergency call on his mobile that made that apple pie ass of his to move away from my ‘mother paid’ sessions not my visible discomfort. I did nothing, said nothing, the lioness in me was dying a goat’s death.

Before he walked out of that door, he again turned back and this time he hugged me, taking away my lasting breaths. Before I could interpret the embracing vector, he left me as if ripping the bandage out of my raw wounds; the only difference was that I didn’t shrieked.

“Name is Vashist, Dr Vivaan Vashist, in case you are interested to know.” And then he left me craving for more. The events of the day haunted me and declined to leave my thought process. I googled him but nothing popped on my screen. I was desperate for the next meeting and clock was lazy to make the next move. In short he was killing me.

In morning I did the extra cycle of pranayaam to feed my brain with enough oxygen so that it didn’t lose its footing at his radius. But my brain and my two hearts again gave up at his sighting. This time at the commencement of the session he hugged me, it was fraction of seconds prolong than our last hug at our first meeting, twenty seconds to be exact.

“So are you ready for this social intercourse?” he said smiling.

Was it only me who was reading between the lines or he was playing the card of sexual connotations between his smiles? He manure the conversation further by discussing my medical resume and as per the examination of the patient part goes he just checked only my pulse, though if he would have asked me, I could have stripped on impulse.

After the two warm of sessions, the third day he came strictly to business, even though hugging and pulse checking was regular phenomenon to all our meets.

“Why don’t you give up one of your hearts?” he asked.

I have already lost both to you but instead of that I said, “What’s wrong in keeping the two, even the cockroach have thirteen hearts and he keeps them all?”

“Insightful but eventually you are turning into Phineas Gage?”

Phineas Gage was the 25 years old man when he lost the part of his brain in a freak accident in which a three foot, seven inch tamping iron rod pierced his skull in 1848. He survived it but in span of time he turned into the most contemptuous, scornful man that ever walked the earth. And according to my ‘dead drop handsome’ doctor, the excess of blood being supplied by my twin prodigies to my brain box would eventually lead to oxidation damage to my grey cells and would eventually degenerate my pre frontal cortex and then the world would experience another Phineas Gage in me. Moreover, I have started showing the early signs and symptoms of being one sarcastic bitch. He also highlighted the possibility of my early death by stroke because of the gushing volumes drained to my head.

Our fourth meeting was a prolong discussion on how to step into the shoes of marvel superhero.

“Yes Doc, I know, the essence of Heroism is to sacrifice oneself so that others can live. But you know what, these either look good in books or could be used to con the fools not me.”

“The best con man in this world is God, who gave you two hearts in first place and provided you the opportunity to paint the bigger picture....” and then suddenly he started speaking Sanskrit, “... yad, yad acarati sresthas, tad tad evetaro janah, sayat pramanam kurute, lokas vas tad anivertate.... 3.21 Bhagvad Gita, meaning whatever action a great man performs, common men fellow. And whatever standards he set by exemplary acts, all the world pursues.”

Sexy doc, quoting religion, God have mercy, how much hotter can he get?

He continued, “Once you understand that thoroughly, you get the permanent denizenship to the city of that con man, sitting right here in Delhi.”

And as abrupt were those lines as random was the ending of our fourth session but with the patent hug that lasted for forty seconds. He never fails to surprise me with abruptness of his actions which continued for two more days when he bunked our fifth and sixth meet because of unknown reasons. I have never felt so helpless in my life that too because of one damn man.

Book of psychology gives a fixed sequential pattern through which one goes through distressing times called ‘DABDA’, Denial, Anger, Bargain, Depression and Acceptance. I went through them in those two days, finally accepting to wait as my only sane strategy.

But seeing him again took away all my pain. How could I ever be angry at those eyes? But his stochastic approach was still in continuation, when he duped counselling and put the consent form of surgery on the table with the pen. That’s the worst gift ever that I could get on turning an adult today. He said he will not meet me again except in the operation theatre when I decide to rip away one of my heart. And then he left, that too without a hug. What kind of the counsellor does that? I could officially complain against him for bulldozing decisions but instead I went through my second cycle of ‘DABDA’!

One month later...

“We would be putting you out, please start to reverse count from ten,” said my anaesthesiologist.

“No... Please wait...” I cried.

“You need not wait more, I’m here.” And he held my hand. How could I ever forget that touch and those eyes? Just under the whimsical fancy to see him again I was ready to give away my heart that I kept so obstinately with me all those years of my life. He was right I was getting crazier day by day.

I held his hand in the tight grip but before I could say anything he bend over and said in my ear, “Don’t tax your mind. When you wake up, just remember that shloka 3.21 of Bhagvad Gita I told you, the city of God, everything we talked about. Don’t listen to whatever people tell you. Just trust your instinct and you will have your heartfelt.... W..I..S..H...” I don’t remember anything more as I was put into sleep.

When I finally woke after 12 hours surgery he wasn’t there, indeed his existence was wiped off the slate, as if he only existed in my brain. My doctors don’t remember him; my mother didn’t vouch for his presence in my life. In my treatment history my counselling sessions were held under some middle age doctor Dr Radhika Ramana.

He was there in reality, not fragment of my imagination; I don’t know why people are refusing his presence and occurrence. I can never be that wrong, hallucinating seven days with him. I consequently slipped into my hat trick of ‘DABDA’.

Three months after the surgery......

I was standing outside the gates of house, addressed, 3/21, Dwarka in dilemma of knocking the door. But before my action’s implementation, the door opened and there he stood smiling with those intense eyes. I can never remain angry with those eyes.

“It took you quiet long to reach here, was traffic that bad?”

My renowned IQ of 180 took time to decipher his last departing lines at the operation theatre, when he coded his address in them and told me to believe in my convictions irrespective of the fact whatever the world around me says.

“I lost my heart, maybe the factory in the grey matter slowed down the bit.” I can also play ‘reading between the lines’ game but still couldn’t prevent my eyes getting all tanked up.

So, here’s how the entire story of my losing the heart both literally and figuratively speaking goes. He runs a con agency which helps in big social causes. He was hired by the rich guy whose little boy desperately needed my heart as it was the perfect HLA match (genetic lingo). Since I was reluctant, they plotted the entire set up. It was a top secret mission involving my treating doctors who unanimously vouch against my Frankenstein’s anatomy,  and were born ready with their knives and scalpels, frantically wishing to slice it away. My mother was kept at bay, entirely ignorant of their ulterior motives, because of the emotional vulnerability vector she always displays. And since the entire thing was professionally unethical, the illusion they created in form of shining armour knight, was dab cleaned, once I caved.

“What made you so sure that I would fall in your created pit?” I was stern.

He explained me the entire physiology of his plan. As soon as my mind, body and soul went bananas spotting him, my sympathetic nervous system got hyper-activated and gave away the location of my hearts on his radar. Excessive pupil dilatation, malar flushes or in layman’s it just simple blushing, sweaty palms and increased pulse rate (that’s why he insisted on checking it over again) are so called ‘love at first sight’ signs. And he sealed the deal with more than ‘twenty seconds hug principle’ from the Bible of the courtship. According to this principle, more than twenty seconds hug by a person you fancy (in my case the hug timed up to 40 seconds, probably because of my two hearts), increases the blood oxytocine levels aka love hormones in female body, consequently shutting away all the scrutinizing centres of brain naming amygdale, pre frontal cortex and hippocampus gyrus (all these medical jargons sounded as poetry from his lips), eventually building new trust circuits, resulting in the blind faith.

The final straw was his abrupt absences that made me so desperate and confused and breed the ground for me to take an impulsive decision on a bargain to meet my prince charming again.

 He was handsome, eloquent, a perfect thespian and ‘know all’, he is a legend from the league of extraordinary gentleman.

“So now, the game is over, what’s next?” I asked.

“You are an asset, that’s why I left you the missing link to join me.” he said slipping the appointment letter to join his firm.

I looked into his eyes to assess the authenticity of his proposal as I have burned my fingers in past. He must have read my mind, “You have earned it, dear.”

“By the way what’s your real name?” I asked.

“For you, it’s Christian Grey.” He simply answered from those eyes.