A 12-year-old Indian-origin student from Singapore has bagged two gold medals at the World Memory Championships held in Hong Kong.
Dhruv Manoj won in the ‘names and faces’ and ‘random words’ disciplines, beating 56 other contestants in the “kids category” in the competition held from December 20-22.
Dhruv, who has just finished primary school, memorised more than seven decks of shuffled cards in an hour; 1,155 binary numbers in half that time; and 87 names and faces in 15 minutes.
The only Singaporean in the competition of over 260 contestants from China, Russia, India, Taiwan and Malaysia, Dhruv stood out with his stupendous memory.
Dhruv has mastered the Roman memory technique of creating ‘memory palaces’, which works by associating the ideas or objects to be memorised with scenes imagined at familiar locations, such as one’s house.
Tough game
Training for Hong Kong competition was tougher for Dhruv, who was also a head prefect, a sprinter in the track and field team, and a member of the computer club.
Dhruv said he would squeeze in two-three hours of practice a week before the vital Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) after six years of first level of schooling.
“The toughest part was concentrating on what I have to do, because for most of my friends, PSLE just ended... For me, sitting down there and practising... it was hard, but I managed to pull through,” said Dhruv.