New Delhi/Chandigarh: Having an Intelligence Quotient ((IQ) of 150 points, same as was possessed by celebrated scientist Albert Einstein, a five-year-old Haryana-based boy, is leaving people transfixed with his extraordinary power of grasping and recalling tutored facts.
His incredible capability to answer any question within fraction of seconds has already earned him the title of “Google Boy.”
Hailing from Kuhand village in Karnal district of Haryana, Kautilya Pandit has picked up general knowledge nuggets pertaining to domestic and international affairs, space, geographical borders, natural resources etc while others his age still attempt the alphabets.
At this tender age, he is a veritable encyclopedia having learnt by rote all kinds of random information about 213 countries across the world.
So much so that he has attracted the attention of international psychology experts who want to investigate his learning capabilities. They are trying to analyse his memory quality as to how and in what psychological pattern he memorises things.
Psychologists from the famous Kurukshetra University have already conducted research and memory tests on Kautilya and marked him a ‘genius child.’
Kautilya’s grandfather Jaikishan Sharma, who claims to be his friend, philosopher and guide, explains the phenomenon.
“Kautilya is indeed a wonder boy with an excellent photographic memory. This is both natural and acquired. He can answer almost any question with utmost ease. Such capability is extremely rare in his age group. We noticed this the first time during a family trip to Agra in February last when we saw him reading and remembering the signboards,” Sharma tells the Gulf News over phone.
“Then later during the last summer holidays, I took the help of a tutor Sushil Rawal who introduced various physical and political maps and atlas to Kautilya. Once told, Kautilya memorised names of almost everything, all countries, their capitals and oceans at once. We experimented further and noticed that he recalled everything said to him without any difficulty,” Sharma, a retired vice-principal, adds.
Kautilya has now memorised the whole of atlas with correct and complete data. He can tell you the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and per capita income of any country, geographical boundaries in any order, details of space, international politics, and practically anything that you can possibly ask.
Studying in class one at SD Harit Modern School, run by Kautilya’s father Satish Sharma at Kuhand village, the ‘little wonder’ eats only homemade food prepared by his mother and avoids fast foods. His father tells Gulf News that initially Kautilya would dance very well and perform brilliant yogic exercises but within months he lost interest in both.
Nicknamed ‘mini encyclopedia’, Kautilya is fond of mathematics and science.
“I love reading books, that is my idea of fun. I want to know everything about everything but science and maths are my most-liked,” beaming Kautilya says.
“Kautilya is basically God’s gift to us. We are blessed to have him as our child. He is very inquisitive and keeps asking questions on one thing or another. Sometimes he gets up in the middle of night and poses a question or two to his parents. If he is not satisfied, he goes up to his grandfather. He refuses to sleep unless he gets the answer. And one question invariably leads to another,” Satish Sharma explains.
“Kautilya has been extremely talkative right from the time he started to speak. He has transformed himself into a sea of knowledge in just three months. Now he has no friends. His grandfather and his books are his only friends. He draws inspiration and strength from his grandfather,” Satish Sharma adds.
Kautilya has a flair for writing and has written several songs and poems in Hindi. His ambition is to study as much as possible and then decide the course of his career.
Sometimes dubbed as ‘memory prince’ by the media, Kautilya’s favourite leisure interest is studying atlas. He has two sisters, aged seven and nine, who are also quite intelligent but not a match for him. His both parents are teachers.
Possessing talent that is way beyond his years, Kautilya treats Chanakya, famed for his diplomatic skills and economic acumen in the ancient era, as his Guru and wants to be wise and witty like him. He is even growing a pig tail similar to Chanakya’s.
So much so that at a time when thousands of people, after spending hours on their cell phones failed to get phone call from popular game show ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ (KBC) hosted by megastar Amitabh Bachchan, wonder kid Kautilya not only got invited to the show last year but also answered all the questions confidently and correctly.
In order to nurture Kautilya’s talent further, his grandfather now wants someone to sponsor his studies in some of the elite schools such as ‘the Gwalior Scindia School’, ‘the Doon School of Dehradoon’ or ‘the Bangalore BCS’. He feels that the government, both central and state, should provide incentives to children who show such exceptional talent.
