Mumbai: City whiz kid makes it to MENSA India

Talk about IQs that can give one vertigo since they reach dizzying heights and one may very well be talking about Shaurya Nair, a six-year-old child from Bhandup who has become the youngest entrant to MENSA India. "The MENSA is an association of "very high-IQ persons," said MENSA India president Imtiaz Saigara, to put it succinctly.

MENSA is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world. MENSA International is an organisation of individuals with high IQs that aims to identify, understand, nurture and support intelligence; encourage intelligence research; and create and seek both social and intellectual experiences for its members. MENSA India, which is a chapter of MENSA International, comprises the top two percentile of the population. There are certain tests that one has to pass to qualify as a Mensa member.

Currently, MENSA India has 3,400 members. Saigara said, "We have recently started accepting children as members of MENSA India. We do not test children under 10. They are inducted into MENSA through intelligence tests like WISC or Stanford Binet." Saigara said that "MENSA means round table and members meet around a table at different venues nearly, 40 times a year. Members meet and there is talk, intellectual stimulation and ideas exchange."

"Often, children who are in the MENSA group may be quiet in class and socially awkward too. They may just find the studies very easy. Here, they get an opportunity to talk to other members and learn. It is a very mentally challenging environment," said Saigara who is a Parel resident.

Puzzle power

Shaurya's parents, Umesh and Shreevidya Nair said, "Shaurya is six, he has always been so curious, his questions have been infinite," they laughed. They were inclined to think Shaurya may have a high IQ after he demonstrated an alacrity and felicity for puzzles, solving them astonishingly quickly. His parents said, "He learned to solve Rubik's cube when he was three and mastered 2'2, 3'3 and Pyraminx before he was four. He is now trying to solve Mirror Rubik's cube."

Numbers count

"Shaurya, who studies in a Powai school, is organised and good with schedules. He is well-adjusted in school and has friends but numbers are his friends. He is very good in mental maths and can perform addition, multiplication, division and subtraction of most two-digit numbers and can add or subtract any two large numbers on paper," said his mother.

"Shaurya also knows the names and capitals of 75 countries and can recognise these countries by their flags. He loves doing Science experiments," she added. In the end, though, the wonder boy from Bhandup is just a child after all. He enjoys reading picture books and playing football. He also has changing goalposts say his parents.

"On some days, he wants to be a scientist and create a rainbow of his own while other days he wants to be an astronaut to explore the universe." In both instances, the youngest member of MENSA India knows the sky is no limit.

3 yrs
The age at which Shaurya could solve the Rubik's cube