City boy Ujwal Bhat was in the news recently when he was given the National child award for exceptional achievement in the field of memory power.
The child prodigy who received this prestigious from the UPA Chairperson Smt Sonia Gandhi and Renuka Chowdhury on behalf of the Ministry for Women and Child Development, has been a whiz kid in maths all his life.

The class eight student of Aurobindo International School who received a silver medal, cash prize and certificate at the function held recently in New Delhi is a national record holder of the Limca book of records 2006 in the memory category.

Ujwal has a gifted talent of being remarkably fast and accurate in field of mental arithmetic and memory. He has memorised every day and date between the year 1600 and 2200 A.D of the Gregorian calendar. On being asked any particular date between these years, in a jiffy, he can tell the exact day and vice-versa. He also knows squares, square-root, cube-root, fifth-root, percentages of whole numbers 1 to 99.

Hailed as the talking calendar, Ujwal recalls his most memorable moments, “Winning the Limca award and meeting Abdul Kalam have been the most exciting experience I’ve ever had,” he says.

His father happened to discover his son’s gifted talent accidentally. “When Ujwal pointed out the day of a particular date in the previous year correctly, I realised that he could have a hidden talent. He was only 6 years old then,” says Ujwal’s father A. Raghavendra Bhat who is a scientist in DRDO. “I asked him to memorise days and dates of the Gregorian calendar and was surprised by his grasping power as well as accuracy,” he further adds.

“I aspire to become a scientist just like my father. I want to specialise in developing missiles. I hope to get into IIT one day.

Genius he may be, but like any other kid, Ujwal dislikes homework. “I love watching cartoons every night and playing computer games. When ever I get free time, I play galli cricket,” he says.