It was four years ago when Kumara Perumal Chidambaram noticed something unusual about his then three-year-old son K Anirudh. The toddler, he says, recited the Aathichudi and Kondrai Venthan by the Tamil poet Avvayyar. This is probably why Chidambaram wasn't quite surprised when Anirudh made it to the India Book of Records and Asia Book of Records in late 2020 for being the fastest human to add 50 numbers and to identify the maximum species of dinosaurs.
"Anirudh was passionate about dinosaurs from the age of two. He was also keen on learning numbers that reach the millions and billions even when he was four. So we kept encouraging his interests," says Chidambaram. "However, he practiced for a week before the record event to name the dinosaurs right and add the numbers," he adds.
A first-grader in DPS Modern Indian School, Doha, Anirudh can now name more than 300 species of dinosaurs. "He has a huge collection of toy dinosaurs. Wherever he sees dinosaurs he gets excited," says Chidambaram. At the same time, he is apparently quite good with his mathematics too. "He is quite good in mental mathematics. He would attempt division, multiplication, subtraction and addition mentally," he says.
When the COVID-19 pandemic dampened Anirudh and his family's travel plans in winter 2020, luck favoured them in another way. Chidambaram says how. "We thought of utilising the holidays well by attempting the record," he says. While Anirudh made it to the India Book of Records in December 2020, he made it to the Asia Books of Records in February 2021.
These records do not stop this little one from aiming higher. "His ambition to become an astronaut and to be one of the first reaching Mars. He also enjoys coding and robotics," says Chidambaram.
