A Hearty Turn

“Are you sure, Rhea?” asked 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 a 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 the 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 labeled me as a freak mutation. It’s so rare – literally one in all humankind - that they didn’t even name the anomaly (as they call it, I will call it awesomeness). I want to name the condition myself, something on the lines of Rhea’s Heartsawsome but the doctors 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 phenomenal metabolism rate – are just the few boring benefits of an increased blood circulation. Why would I ever give that up? [*]

That’s how I began my tale to Dr. Ramya, about my age, at the Kidney Research and Rehabilitation Center at Kodur, and for better effect, followed it while undergoing dialysis. With a purpose that is.

Those slogans still ring in my ears though it happened some ten years back when I was twenty-something. It’s when my twin-hearts were fronting the fountainhead of my Rand-inspired head, that’s what it was like. But now my kidneys can’t even handle half of that outflow, how times change! If only my father were alive then! Wouldn’t he have backed me to the hilt? That’s what fathers are for daughters. Don’t we have psycho analysis about that, but that’s beside the point. Why, even my mother wouldn’t have toyed with that idea, so to say, in normal times. But then, she had to contend with her widowhood and the insecurity it brought along with it. Damn the sense of insecurity, the source of insensitivity, at least part of it. So she envisaged bartering my hearty thing for her secured living. And to be fair to her, she revealed her mundane self without putting on a Samaritan garb over it. But did she really, was it a full disclosure. I doubt. Since the needy fellow was a Bollywood star, wouldn’t she have eyed some elderly role for herself as a badi bahu or a choti maa on the celluloid that is? Well past her prime then, she was still good enough to enamour even younger eyes, and she hasn’t lost much, as of now. If only she could’ve made it to the silver screen then, who knows, she could be adorning it, some way or the other, even now. Why won’t that hold a great promise to my mate in lovemaking? Be that as it may, I played foul with that which could’ve been an antonym for a double whammy for her. Yet she didn’t bear any grudge against me, on that count at least.




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