10 amazing facts every Indian must know before watching the movie 'SHAKUNTALA DEVI'

Shakuntala Devi- the Human Computer

 

Mathematical genius, Shakuntala Devi was born on November 4, 1929 in a poor Kannada Brahmin family in Bangalore. She was popularly known as ‘Human Computer’ or ‘Mental Calculator’.

She was a primary school dropout, without having any formal education as her father could not afford her school fee of Rs 2.

But, despite of all hardships and obstacles, Shakuntala Devi excelled in here mathematical skills and created records after records by calculating complex mathematical problems within seconds.

She died in April 2013, at the age of 83 in Bengaluru.

So, here we bring to you 10 interesting facts every Indian must know before watching the movie:

 

1. Shakuntala Devi’s father was a Brahmin but he rebelled against the family ritual of becoming a temple priest.

Instead he worked as a circus performer (lion tamer, trapeze artist, tightrope walker, and magician) to earn a living for his family.

He discovered his daughter’s special ability to memorize and calculate numbers when she was 3 years old, while he was showing some card tricks. After this incident, he left the circus and started road shows with his daughter, showing her ability of calculations by solving math problems within seconds.

 

2. At age of 6, she showed her unique mathematical abilities at the University of Mysore.

She even demonstrated her talent at a younger age at Annamalai University, Osmania University and other varsities in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.

In 1944, at the age of 15, she moved to London with her father and gradually acquired fame when she started appearing in International media.

3. BBC host Leslie Mitchell, in 1950, called her to his show and gave her a math problem to solve.

She solved it in seconds but the answers did not match. She confidently proclaimed in the show that she wasn’t wrong, it was the computer that made the mistake. Later, she was found precise and soon after this, she was bestowed with the title ‘Human Computer’.

 4. Shakuntala Devi was a world traveller.

For more than six decades, she packed her suitcase for England, United States, Hong Kong, Japan, Sri Lanka, Italy, Canada, Russia, France, Spain, Mauritius, Indonesia and Malaysia.

She demonstrated her arithmetic talents in many countries, though not in Russia (then USSR) and China as they were communist countries. In her later years, she also visited this two countries and also attended interviews in their media channels.

5. Devi gave the answer of 23^rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds.

 This incident took place in 1977, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Her answer 546,372,891 was confirmed by a special computer, for which a program had to be written to solve the calculation which took longer time than her (around 72 seconds).

6. Her name was recorded in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records.

On 18 June 1980, Shakuntala Devi demonstrated the multiplication of two 13 digit numbers at Imperial College of London.

She gave the correct answer in 28 seconds, which was the time taken for her to speak the answer.

7. Shakuntala Devi was an astrologer and also an Indian writer.

She has written many books on astrology, science of numbers, puzzles, cooking, and also has written novels.

In 1977, her book ‘The World of Homosexuals’ created buzz in India. This book is considered to be the first study of homosexuality in India. But it wasn’t allowed to reach more people and take the center stage. 

8. Her life changed when she married a homosexual man.

 In 1960, Devi married Kolkata-based IAS officer, Paritosh Bannerji. However, the marriage soon fell apart when Bannerji's homosexuality was revealed. But, this worked as a catalyst which helped her to write a book on homosexuals.

Finally after 19 years of married life, they both got divorced and Devi moved away with her daughter, Anupama Banerjee.

9. In 1980, she contested for Lok Sabha elections against Indira Gandhi.

She stood as an independent candidate from ‘Medak’ against then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. However she lost the election by acquiring only 6514 votes.

10. On 4^th Nov, Google honoured her.

On her 84^th birthday, Google honoured her with a Google doodle.

She was also awarded a title by Philippines University (1969) as a gold medalist, received ‘Ramanujan Mathematics Genius Award’ in Washington DC, and many other awards.

However, she never received India’s highest civilian awards and titles and recognition.

So before watching the biographical film on Shakuntala Devi, every Indians must know about the above facts about her.

This film was stated to be released on May 8, but due to covid-19 pandemic, the film will be streamed worldwide on Amazon Prime video on July 31, instead of a theatrical release.

Good wishes to the team.