Get to know Shakuntala Devi, the woman known as the ‘human computer’

13.05.2019 15:14

Vogue.in

Years before she earned the moniker of ‘human computer’, three-year-old Shakuntala Devi was sitting and playing cards with her father. He quickly realised that she wasn’t winning every single game by fluke. Naturally, he thought she was cheating, and taking a peak at his cards when he wasn’t looking. But he was wrong there too. Turns out, she was memorising the card numbers and the sequence as the game progressed, and used it to her advantage by calculating the probability.

The prodigy in this anecdote, who passed away in August 2013, was so much more than just a mathematician. And now, Vidya Balan is set to bring her extraordinary story to the big screen. The yet-to-be-titled biography would be directed by Four More Shots Please director Anu Menon, and will reportedly release in 2020. “What truly fascinates me is that you wouldn’t normally associate a fun person with math… and she completely turns that perception on its head,” Balan said in a statement.

Shakuntala Devi, the ‘human computer’

Shakuntala Devi’s upbringing was something every young Enid Blyton fan dreamt of. Born to an orthodox Kannada family, she was raised by her father who had rebelled against his family to join a circus. It was during his days as a trapeze artist, a lion tamer, a tightrope walker and a magician, that he discovered the incredible arithmetic talents of his daughter. Thus began her journey of global recognition, starting from the University of Mysore at six years of age to Europe and New York, where she stunned the world with her ability to solve complex calculations within seconds.

She continually proved that her calculations were foolproof, as evidenced in an interview she did with BBC on her 1950 Europe tour. Her answer to a difficult calculation posed by the interviewers was different than theirs. Turned out, their calculators had given them the wrong answer, and Shakuntala Devi was right after all. A 1976 New York Times article marvelled at her genius, exclaiming, “She could give you the cube root of 1,88,132,517—or almost any other number—in the time it took to ask the question. If you gave her any date in the last century, she would tell you what day of the week it fell on.”

It was on June 18, 1980, that she officially cemented her place in history as the ‘Human Computer’, when she earned a place in the 1982 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. She correctly multiplied two 13-digit numbers, picked at random by the computer department at the Imperial College of London, in 28 seconds—a figure that is inclusive of the time it took Shakuntala Devi to recite the 26-digit answer to the problem.

Arthur R Jensen, a researcher on human intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, noted in a journal published in 1990 that Shakuntala didn’t display signs of being autistic, like Dustin Hoffman’s character in the 1988 movie, Rain Man. Hoffman played a character who had similar mathematical abilities like Shakuntala Devi, but as Jensen noted “Devi comes across as alert, extroverted, affable, and articulate”—unlike the onscreen role. Over the years, she authored several books, including Astrology for You, Figuring: The Joy of Numbers, and The World of Homosexuals.

Fight for decriminalisation of homosexuality in India

Aside from beating man-made computers, Shakuntala Devi was extremely active in raising awareness for the crimes against the LGBT community in India, and calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in our country. In the 1970s, Shakuntala Devi divorced her husband after he came out of the closet, and decided to dedicate her life to understanding the stigmatisation of same-sex relationships in our culture, and fighting as an ally. In 1970s, she wrote The World of Homosexuals, a book that went disappointingly unnoticed at that time, but gained popularity over the years for being one of the earliest studies of our society’s understanding of homosexuality. The book features a series of interviews with a gay men in India and abroad, including a same-sex couple in Canada, and delves into society’s intolerance towards the community, concluding with a call to strike down medieval laws criminalising a human’s basic right to love who they want. She wrote, “On this level, nothing less than full and complete acceptance will serve—not tolerance, and not sympathy.”

The extraordinary mathematicians you can meet on the big screen

Shakuntala Devi is clearly not the first mathematician whose life and work enticed filmmakers enough to showcase it on celluloid. Scroll ahead for all the other biopics you need to watch if you like movies featuring the world of math.

Hidden Figures (2016)

The award-winning biographical drama was based on the life of black female mathematicians, including Katherine Johnson, during the early years of the Mercury Program, and NASA. It stars Taraji P Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe in leading roles, and Glen Powell, Kirsten Dunst, Kevin Costner, and Mahershala Ali in supporting roles.

The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015)

The movie is based on the life of Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who overcomes his underprivileged upbringing in Madras and gains admittance to Cambridge University during the first World War. He is known as a pioneer in mathematical theories. Slumdog Millionaire actor Dev Patel stars as Ramanujan in this one, while Jeremy Irons portrays the role of his professor, G H Hardy.

The Imitation Game (2014)

Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch stars in the biographical drama based on the life of Alan Turing, the British mathematician who decrypted German intelligence codes for the British government during the second World War. The film also stars Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode and Charles Dance.

Agora (2009)

The Spanish-English language historical drama was based on the life of Ancient Greek-Egyptian mathematician, Hypatia. She is one of the world’s first female mathematicians and astronomers, and her life and work is reasonably well-recorded. She also established great political influence with the Roman prefect (governor) of Alexandria, which eventually led to her violent end at the hands of a mob. The movie also sees Rachel Weisz, Oscar Isaac and Max Minghella in key roles.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

This Academy Award-winning film is loosely based on the life of mathematician John Nash (named John Forbes Nash Jr at birth), his struggles with several mental disorders and the breakthrough that wins him the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Nash is known for his contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and the study of partial differential calculations. Russel Crowe played the lead role in the film, and was accompanied by Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany.

Sofia Kovalevskaya (1985)

This Russian biographical film was released as a television miniseries in 1985. It was based on the life of mathematician scientist Sofia Kovalevskaya, a pioneer for female mathematicians in the Soviet Union. Inspite of several obstacles, she managed to make a name for herself as a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.