A curious kid with commendable memory
A talented child — B.V. Kuralamuthan, lovingly called Kural at home, from Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, has received appreciation from the India Book of Records for recalling the capitals of all the 28 Indian states in a short span of 43 seconds, that too at the age of 4 years and 1 month. Kural, a student of UKG at Sitharam International School at Prathanadu, Thanjavur, has diverse interests. On the one hand, he loves numbers and maths, but at the same time, he is also fond of drawing and painting. He prefers to sketch fruits, vegetables, and cartoon characters on the drawing sheets.
When asked what is the meaning of Kuralamuthan, the boy’s mother Mrs. S. Preethi explained, “The name means ‘Literary Eternal Sweet’. His name Kural is derived from the great Tamil literature – Thirukural and Amuthu from Mythology.” Mrs. Preethi has done MA and BEd, and currently, she is a Ph.D. Research Scholar in English Literature at Orathanadu, Thanjavur. His father, Mr. MB Vilavapathi has done MSc, BEd, and MPhil, and works as a Block Statistical Investigator at Sedapatti, Madurai.
Talking to the India Book of Records e-magazine, Preethi said, “Kural is a God’s gift to us. We observed his interest in identifying pictures and recalling different words when he was just 2 years old. He loved to identify freedom fighters, fruits, vegetables, and wild animals by seeing the pictures. After some practice, Kural started identifying 11 freedom fighters of India. After a little practice, he also started recalling the names of the Capitals of all the Indian states. You name the state, and he would tell you its capital. In a shuffled manner too, Kural gives the correct answer. Noticing this skill, we calculated the timing which was near about 43 seconds. Then we thought of approaching the India Book of Records.”
Kural loves to memorize Thirukural and he can recite four Thirukural correctly. His favorite subject is mathematics and he likes to download maths worksheet and does it himself. He is the only vegetarian member of a family of non-vegetarians. He loves cycling and playing football. His natural activities include collecting toys and replicas of cars, playing with a kitchen set to make salads, and watching cartoon films on the television. His favorite program is ‘Man vs Wild’ featuring Bear Grylls, the British adventurer, and his favorite food items include Vegetable Rice and Dosa. He loves to listen to music, especially Tamil songs. He prefers to go on adventurous trips with his maternal uncle– Gurusarithan, and His bedtime storytellers are his grandparents — Sekar and Pushpa.
Kural’s parents admire his super grasping power. While playing, if he listens to his elders discussing anything, he can recall everything anytime later. He could correlate the story’s morals with real life in amazing ways. That is a very astonishing habit. His father wants to see him become a sportsperson, but his mother is bringing him up to be a great human. “Kural’s future profession and his education definitely will be his own priority. We should not force anything on the child,” says his mother.