Far away from the madding crowds, a 20-year-old Hyderabadi clinched the first-ever gold for India as the fastest human calculator in the the world in the Mental Calculation World Championship at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on last week’s Independence Day. Neelakantha Bhanu Prakash’s feat is also the first such by a non-European.
Bhanu Prakash says the first edition of the competition was held in 1998 while last week’s was digital because of the pandemic. “It is an open event featuring 30 human calculators from 13 countries with an age limit of up to 50 years. In fact, the jury was so surprised with my score that they required me to perform a few more extra questions which I did properly,” he reveals.
A Lebanese participant trailed behind by 65 points to bag the second position while a UAE participant came third. “That shows the sport picking up across Asia,” he says.
An accident at the age of five had confined Bhanu Prakash to bed, but he recovered and went on to make a huge impact in the world of human calculators. “For long, I have been fascinated with math and believe it is all about doing calculations quickly and to think fast,” says the resident of Motinagar (Borabanda) here.
Interestingly, Bhanu Prakash has four world records and also 50 Limca Records to his credit and is apparently delighted with the latest feat which he feels should only help his cause in eradicating the math phobia among students. “Well, when you come to know that the world record for the fastest human calculator was once held by the likes of Scott Flansburg and Shakuntala Devi, I do feel honoured to scale those heights,” he tells The Hindu.
Bhanu Prakash has a start-up called ‘Exploring Infinities’ which focusses on mental calculation and popularisation of mind sports. “Given a chance I would like to make each and every student from the government schools of Telangana mathematically skilled and inculcate mathematical acumen required to crack competitive exams like Olympiads, JEE and NEET,” he added.
With parents - J. Srinivas and Hema - into the food processing business, Bhanu Prakash has the liberty to focus on his passion and is determined to scale new highs in the days to come.
“My goal is to change the ways maths is taught in the country and eradicate the phobia with it. I want to make Telangana the state with highest mathematical-literacy levels,” he says.