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His occupation: numbers!
ONE OF HIS KIND: Venkat Thamesh can memorise numbers in a jiffy.
MOST BOYS his age would be found playing with friends or glued to the idiot box or cursing school as they struggle through each day's homework. But this youngster is not the kind.
Numbers fascinate him and most of his time away from school and after finishing his homework is spent playing with numbers. This seventh class student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Uppal, has a phenomenal memory and numbers are like chocolate and ice-cream to him.
That is P. Venkat Thamesh, a bubbly youngster, who closes his eyes and whose eyebrows come together whenever he is asked a mathematical question. Since childhood he has displayed an amazing skill, that of remembering people, names and numbers. And identifying this skill, his parents motivated him further.
He can memorise 60 digit numbers in a jiffy and recite them forwards and backwards. Give him a date 11 years ago and 11 years from now and ask him which day it is and he takes only minutes to answer. Take him to a party where about 25 to 30 persons are talking at the same time and he does not find it difficult to repeat what each person was talking. He can tell the square root of any two-digit number within minutes.
Says his mother Jyothi Raja, an education consultant, "from the age of four we have been observing his sharp memory. But we did not want to tax him and hence allowed him to proceed at his own pace. We made sure that his performance at school was not affected because of his pre-occupation with numbers.''
As early as 1999 he had given performances demonstrating his memory in almost all television channels and down the line, he was made `brand ambassador' by APTECH Computers, where he is also undergoing computer training. Not surprisingly, he is the youngest in class and all his batchmates are older to him by at least 10 to 15 years.
Apart from the basics of computers, Venkat has learnt C, C++ and Java languages and is presently going through a course in Visual Basic. The youngster has a long list of awards, 14 to be precise, to his credit, from several organisations, the latest being the Super Gas Young Achiever award. He has demonstrated his skills before many a Minister in the State Cabinet and of course before the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu.
He has bagged awards for spot painting, dance, mimicry and fancy dress competitions. He is interested in table tennis, which he says is a test of agility and concentration.
By Suresh Krishnamoorthy
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Life
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