A ‘human computer’ one may never see again.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: She gave her touch of genius to two subjects as disparate as mathematics and homosexuality with equal élan. However, for Shakuntala Devi, mathematics was her first and last love. The interest in the other subject was incidental, surfacing after her marriage to a partner who was gay.
Sharing a dais with the likes of Aryabhatta, Ramanujam, CV Raman, Chandrashekhar to name a few, Devi was more famous for shaking the world with her amazing grasp over sheer numbers that had put the most advanced computers of her age to shame.
She is the only human in the planet who went on to prove again and again that grey cells are superior to silicon chips. The only human to have mentally calculated the 23rd root of a 201-digit number and beating a computer hands-down to churn out the cube root of 188138517. She demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers 7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779 picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London and answered the question in 28 seconds flat.
Today, we have ‘mathemagicians’ like Arthur Benjamin who enthrall crowds, mixing wit, charm and numbers with remarkable ease in spectacular stage shows. They are also backed by techniques to work out large calculations. Seen in perspective, however, he takes a minute more than Devi and the squares that Benjamin calculates have five numbers while the Indian lady flirts with 13 with ease. Clearly Devi was in a different league.
For her, mathematics was part of life, something that enhances rather than weighs you down. Some teachers of that subject you may recall are too frightened themselves of numbers that their greatest skill is in faithfully passing on that fear to their students. In her book Mathability: Awaken the Math Genius in Your Child she says that (maths) makes ‘’ you more aware, more alert, more keen because it is a constant source of inspiration.” And it, “makes you regard yourself with greater respect and in turn invokes respect from others around you.”
After her marriage to a civil servant, Paritosh Banerjee, life began to demand more from her, and she rose to that challenge. She soon realized that her husband was a homosexual and the marriage crumbled in 1979. Devi reacted by getting to know the concepts of same sex behavior and produced a book.
Pioneering thought processes were reflected in that work. It argued that gays have to be considered as just human beings: “Nothing less than full and complete acceptance will serve—not tolerance and not sympathy.” Dubbed as the first study of homosexuality in India , The World of Homosexuals came from an impassionate desire to look at homosexuality more closely which features interviews with two young Indian men, a male couple in Canada seeking legal marriage, a temple priest who explains his views on homosexuality, and a review of the existing literature on homosexuality.
But the book failed to make much of a mark as Devi was known for mathematics only and writing on a subject far divorced from the world of numbers was not expected of her. Moreover, India of the period had still to unwrap such sexual preferences from the closets and fought shy of an open discussion on the issue.
Born into an orthodox priestly family on November 4th, 1929, at Bangalore, Devi had inherited that strength of character, to experiment with anything, presumably from her father, who dared to make a living out of swinging trapezes, tight-rope walking and being a human cannonball. During a card-playing session her father was stunned to discover her mathematical genius after she memorized all the cards. She gave her first public performance at the age of six at the University of Mysore, where she showcased her abilities to an awestruck audience.
The rest as they say is history.
Six months after her death, Google, on Monday, celebrated Devi’s 84th birth anniversary with a doodle. No mean achievement for someone who often faced hunger and literally no formal schooling as a child. Devi is a constant reminder of performing against all odds – again and again.
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