CHAPTER 21: Savant Syndrome

Memories of my life continued to flash, and in them, our Grandpa argued with the priest and made our names a bit longer in a way that they sound like alphabets.

Considering that the single-letter names would be awkward and just like that, I was named 'Jay', my Sister with 'Qew', and my brother was given 'Kay.'

That was one of the reasons why I admire my grandfather and another reason was that he is a self-made man.

He began a small startup in the 1980s with a creative business model called 'Buy One, Give One.'

It was named as 'Nav-Yuga', which means a 'new age' as my Grandfather envisioned an 'Age' where people be kind and help each other.

In the business model 'Buy One, Give One', for every product a customer buys, another similar product such as clothes, footwear and other necessities will be donated to the poor.

And our social enterprise was transparent with the donations, and this caused an impact on people since they can indirectly help people by just buying stuff from our Social Enterprise.

With that, our customer base increased exponentially, and 'Nav-Yuga' turned into one of the top 'Large-sized Social Enterprises' in India by 2010.

Since our Enterprise maximise profits while maximising benefits to society and the environment, it is called a Social Enterprise.

Even though the profits would be relatively low with the 'Buy One, Give One' business model, the sheer number of customers caused our Social Enterprise to be successful.

My Grandparents has two sons, the eldest son was my father, and my grandmother died after giving birth to my uncle.

Both my father and my Uncle ran our Enterprise along with my Grandfather.

At the momentum in which it grew, it was estimated to have a great potential to reach the level of a conglomerate in the next ten years.

After that, many companies tried to merge our enterprise into theirs, and some large conglomerates even tried to buy our enterprise at high prices.

Grandfather didn't give in and rejected all of them as he knew that once our Social Enterprise was sold or merged with others, it would become a shell where the donations to help the poor would be just in name with some greedy individuals in conglomerates eating up the money that is intended for donations.

Meanwhile, as we grew up, my siblings and I were identified to have Savant syndrome, and in this condition usually comes with a 'Pro' and a 'Con'.

The 'Pro' part of Savant syndrome was to have an extraordinary mental condition and while the 'Con' part was to have a physical disorder.

My younger brother 'Kay' was able to have near-perfect memory power with some strange off the chart persuasion skills.

He can catch microexpressions on a person's face and body language variations.

With that, he could even tell what the person does and even his mental condition to the extent that it looks a bit like mind reading.

At the age of 10, he even gave a class on expressions, conduct and posture to all the staff personnel in our Social Enterprise.

So that when the staff personnel approach in a way that the customers feel more comfortable and to have a more remarkable customer experience.

By teaching them various methods on dealing with different types of customers, our Enterprise popularity was increased even more.

With his ability, he can be called a genius, but that came with a price in the name, 'Polymyositis'.

'Polymyositis' was a physical condition where the body becomes notably weak with massive muscle loss. Still, with proper medication, it can only be kept under wraps, and there was no permanent cure to it yet.

Even with the medication, his body looks pale and thin and more susceptible to diseases with a weak immune system.

As my siblings and I were at the same age, we were in the same class since our childhood.

Some tried to bully my brother for his weak looking body, and I don't know how he does it, but he always manages to 'smooth talk' his way through any situation.

There were cases where some bullies even became friends with Kay by the end of their 'Bullying sessions'.

As for my younger Sister 'Qew', the 'Con' part of Savant syndrome was 'Paraplegia'. In this physical condition, the legs will become paralysed.

Since childhood, she wasn't able to walk and needed to use Electric Wheelchair.

As for the 'Pro' part of Savant syndrome of Qew was her extraordinary thought processing power.

Even though it looks like the similar ability of Kay, in actuality, it was different as she doesn't have near-perfect memory power like Kay.

But a lot higher than an average person and she can multitask at a whole other level.

She can even do 'Speed Reading' at a pace of 10,000 words per minute, and it might sound a lot but there was a Guinness record for 'Speed reading' with a speed of 25,000 words per minute.

Even Kay can't do some things that Qew could since she was able to process more information, her reaction speed was freaky high.

With that, her ability complements even more when she plays video games and in almost all the video games, she whoops our asses without much effort.

As for me, the 'Con' part of Savant Syndrome was different from my siblings as my physical condition was normal. But my cognitive capacity to memorise or learn anything subjective was way below than an average person.

Since the earlier stages of my childhood, it was difficult for me even to get a D grade in my classes. Only with the help of my siblings was I able to barely pass my subjects.

No matter how much I study, I wasn't able to get at least a C-grade, but that was just my detrimental side of my Savant Syndrome.

I was not disappointed about getting low grades as my real ability lies elsewhere.