Amazon Prime is bringing forth the biopic of the Indian mathematical genius Shakuntala Devi (1929 – 2013) featuring Vidya Balan in the titular role on 31st July, and we can’t keep calm.
Shakuntala Devi was aptly referred to as ‘human-computer’ for her arithmetic capabilities. She was also the one to debunk the myth that only serious people become mathematicians. She was full of life and also enjoyed the other nuances of life. Being ahead of her time, she treated homosexuality with a positive perspective and had a soft heart towards homosexuals.
Here are some interesting facts about Shakuntala Devi that makes us more excited to look forward to her complete life journey on the screen.
Born Genius
Shakuntala Devi showed signs of her genius mind just at the tender age of three. It was her father who found her memorizing the card sequences and calculating the next move at that age.
Street mathematician
Shakuntala was a street mathematician. She could solve complex math problems on the streets, that too without any formal education.
Exhibit of talent
Shakuntala took her talent to the University of Madras, Osmania University, Annamalai University, and other varsities at the age of 6!
Shankuntala Devi – The Human Computer
It was in the year 1944 when Shakuntala moved to London along with her father. She continued to exhibit her talent with varsities until she was showcased by the British media. After 6 years, in 1950, she featured in the BBC show hosted by Leslie Mitchell who asked Shakuntala Devi to solve a math problem which she solved in seconds. The shocked host couldn’t believe the answer and rechecked to find that she was right. That’s how she earned the title of ‘human computer’.
Faster than a computer program
In 1977, she gave the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds in a program at Southern Methodist University. Her answer, 546,372,891, was confirmed by calculations done at the US Bureau of Standards by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.
Guinness Record
On 18 June 1980, she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers, 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779, picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College London. She correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in just 28 seconds. This was recorded in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records.
Book on Homosexuality
Shakuntala wrote the first comprehensive book on Indian Homosexuality named The World of Homosexuals in 1977 which she was inspired to write after marrying a gay man.
Writer
Shakuntala Devi explained many of the methods she used to do mental calculations in her book Figuring: The Joy of Numbers. Besides this, she has also written books on astrology and puzzles and math at large.
Shakuntala Devi – The Movie
Shakuntala Devi has been directed by Anu Menon and produced by Sony Pictures Networks Productions and Vikram Malhotra. The movie also stars Bengali actor Jisshu Sengupta, Amit Sadh, and Sanya Malhotra who plays Shakuntala Devi’s daughter. The film’s screenplay is written by Anu Menon and Nayanika Mahtani, and the dialogues are penned by Ishita Moitra.
Shakuntala Devi will release in India and 200 other countries worldwide. Earlier, the film was slated to hit big screens on May 8 but was postponed due to the pandemic.
Here is a teaser. The official trailer will be releasing tomorrow.