The Test

After the test, which took me more than an hour, I emerged into the sunshine. I was wearing dark glasses, feeling like an aviator from a squadron that flew birds through clouds. I shielded my eyes. The test was not agreeable and it had left me feeling queasy. I felt as if a probe had been lodged inside me somewhere.

It seemed that the Ranvir Sena was in the crosshairs, and Ranvir and the three of us had been lined against a wall. And since Ranvir was on leave and I was reporting to Parthasarathy for a month, I felt exposed.

I headed home, taking the long route by foot. The hair on my neck stood against my collar, my insides were churning, and the queasy feeling would not go away even after I arrived home and set my eyes on my Nandini.

“I have a headache,” I told her. “They hired a psychologist to give me a test.”

I had a coffee but it wouldn’t stop my yawning. Nandini gave me my prescription pills, which some idiot doctor said I needed to keep me calm. I popped them into my mouth in front of Nandini’s watchful eye, then went to the washroom and spat them out.

“Don’t you go into your room this early,” scolded the wife. “Talk to me first. I’ve been waiting for you.”

I needed my room right then. I needed to sit at my desk. I needed to read something that could distract me.

“What’s the psychologist’s name? Do you have his address?” asked Nandini.

Should I let her into my childhood, that one last place that was mine? It didn’t matter; she searched my shirt pockets and found his card. Evam Bhaskar. In my presence she called him, pretending to be a mother with a special child. “Can I come now?” she asked. When he said yes, she got up abruptly and left me alone there.

* * *

Evam arrives just as Nandini does and escorts her into his ward. They enter the facility in silence. There are the usual number of children and some mothers there. They greet Evam with warmth and for a few minutes he is occupied with them. Nandini watches, fascinated. She discerns a difference in the kids; it’s not too hard to make out. They smile readily and some of the mothers look at her and smile too. When she smiles back they are by her side. They need to touch her . . . and they do. They need to talk . . . and they do. The questions begin.

“Where is your child? Bring your child next time.”

“First visit? You should come here. This isn’t like the other places.”

Nandini takes a wrench to places locked up inside her. There are moments she will remember, moments she will never forget. A couple of hours go by. As evening shadows form Evam takes her aside. And he talks to her because he needs to, and then he cannot stop. Not all that he says adds up but it fits in with that day and that moment.

“Empty your mind of the words that people gave you, the clichés and the pretense. Spend time in places like these and you will never go to a place of worship again. What gods will you seek after these children have knocked on your doors? You go home and find questions that ransack your mind. There are everyday dreams you have seen that have been left behind.”

She lets him continue on and says nothing.

“We do not have the grace to deal with difference. People go mad because the differences are minor, and yet they are unforgiving. That is all that occupies them. I can hear them yearn. Be like me, child. You are mine. Talk like me. And when they don’t, they shout at me. Show me the fault line, doctor, they tell me. And set it right.”

* * *

Fittingly, Karan had foggy dreams that night as a blanket of smog hung over the city like a slow-building cloud seeking form.

Evam sat in his office and wondered what would happen to Karan now that the tests had been handed over to Parthasarathy. Life had come full circle. The young boys that he had nurtured had grown into fine young men, they had found tough jobs, and they had done well. But things were turning against them. This need to continue to test them and perhaps brand them as “different” was disturbing. What could he do to help them?

Mumbai transforms people into characters, thought Evam, reflecting upon the colorful crew who had surrounded him the past few years. Tiwari the mind setter, Ranvir the vigilante, and the slew of associates both living and dead. Each of them was custom-made; they had no creed written against their name. Among them was Karan with one foot in each camp: a neurotypical on the one hand or an Aspie if you wished to brand him as such.

Evam decided to write a letter to Parthasarathy defending Karan against those who would seek to label him. As an academic, Partha needed some convincing that among all these people who comprised his force, Ranvir’s team wasn’t the one that was really strange.

* * *

Karan’s chart resembled a rock amid a circle, as if it were a meteorite heading to earth. The scoring was marked below:

 

Your Aspie score: 123 of 200

Your neurotypical (nonautistic) score: 94 of 200

You seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits.

 

“Can anyone take this test?” asked Mishra, the CI chief, lighting a cigarette and then looking at it distastefully.

Parthasarathy nodded. “It’s readily available online. This is intentional because many Aspies don’t even know they have the condition.”

“Then I suppose even I could be one,” said the chief, stubbing out the cigarette and coughing. “The questions are deceptively easy.”

Partha consulted some papers he had brought and then continued: “The world is divided into the neurotypicals and Aspies. While Karan seems to be on the cusp between the two groups, the other men on the team clearly showed up as Aspies.”

“What should we do with them?” asked the chief softly.

“Sir, if you met these guys you would know that they are not very different, and without orders they are not dangerous.”

After a while the chief shook his head. “It seems like more than that to me. It seems like Ranvir is rearing his own private species.”

“Sir, with all due respect, that sounds a little extreme,” replied Partha.

The chief shrugged. He wasn’t here to discuss anthropology. “What about the Fourth Squad? Soon you will tell me they are all engineered mutants and that’s what an encounter team needs.”

Partha smiled weakly. “So what do we do now? I only have a month left to run this operation.”

Mishra fiddled with another cigarette for a moment. “Let’s say we put Karan to a test. Is there someone who can give him instructions?”

Partha nodded. “The mole Desai normally deals with Karan.”

“So let’s given him a series of assignments and see how it goes. Leave the usual instructions for him. Observe him closely and report to me. I know there is some risk but we need this capability till we can build it up all over again.”

Partha was reluctant. “It’s unpredictable without Ranvir supervising.”

The chief drummed his fingers on the table and then pulled out his pipe and a packet of fragrant tobacco. He spent a few moments cleaning his pipe, tapping it, eyeing it closely, and then filling it.

“Shall we go ahead then?” asked Partha.

The chief was busy lighting his pipe but he seemed to nod almost imperceptibly.

* * *

“Women are always right about these things,” said Nandini. She pressed the iron down on his uniform, the steam hissing out. “What are these white patches below the arms, and here in the collar? They never go away.”

“Sweat,” said Karan.

She splashed some water on them and ran the iron again. “I told you the gas cylinder was leaking and I knew it the moment I entered the kitchen in the morning. I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, you were.”

“If I hadn’t insisted you would never have replaced that cylinder—and what did the gas company tell you?”

“It would have burst in your face, they said.”

She picked up the shirt and bit a loose thread with her teeth. “I didn’t tell you but I had a feeling about that boy Sudhir next door. I told him to wear a helmet and I even spoke to his mother. Finally he bought one, and guess what?”

“I know, I know.”

“Of course you know—he had an accident a few days later.” She looked up at him to see if he was still listening. He had almost nodded off to sleep. It was eleven p.m. and he’d had a long day. “I haven’t been sleeping well lately,” she added.

“I know,” he said again.

“Karan, I have a premonition, a bad one.” He was alert now. “I keep waking up in a cold sweat. I shouldn’t be saying this but I think you should take a leave—a long one. We could take time off and travel.”

“I can’t. You know I couldn’t just leave work like that.”

She slammed the iron down. “You don’t get it, Karan. I am not being frivolous. I know this may sound foolish, but I’m really worried about you. It just feels like something’s going to happen, and everyone else realizes it too, but they’re all standing around like spectators.”

“Nandini, why do you have to—”

“Fine, forget it. At least take care of the rat.”

“Where is it?”

“In the kitchen, inside the trap. Just dump it in a bucket of water and be done with it. And please shut the door when you come back.”

“Sorry,” he said, after returning from the kitchen a few minutes later. “I can’t do it.”

“You can’t kill a rat?”

“It’s just so small,” he said. “I tried, I lifted the trap and there were squeaky sounds, I dipped it into the bucket but it started splashing around and I could see really small bubbles come up. I couldn’t leave the trap inside.”

“Aaaargh.”

They didn’t speak for a while and the ironing continued.

“Can I just set it free outside the chawl?” he asked.