Write the biographical sketch of Shakuntala devi in about 100 word
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Answer:
Shakuntala Devi was born in Bengaluru, India, on 4 November 1929 to an orthodox Kannada Brahmin family. Her father was a traveling magician who had rebelled against his traditional family to pursue this unconventional profession instead of becoming a priest or astrologer as his forefathers had been.
Her family was a very poor one as her father hardly made enough to make ends meet. She could not even receive a formal education because of her family’s dire financial situation.
According to an anecdote, she started playing card games with her father when she was three years old. Her father realized that the little girl won all the games against him every day and suspected that she was cheating. He closely studied her as she played and realized that she was memorizing all the card numbers and their sequence as the game progressed in the initial rounds and used this knowledge to win the game.
On discovering his daughter’s special gift he began taking her on tours and displayed her ability at calculation on road shows. Soon she garnered much attention and was able to earn considerable money for her father.
Word spread about her amazing ability and soon she started appearing at universities in southern India. She displayed her skills to the faculty of the University of Mysore when she was six and went on to demonstrate her ability at the Annamalai University. She also performed at the Osmania University and the varsities of Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.