Shakuntala Devi was born on November 4th, 1929 in Bangalore, Karnataka. She was nicknamed “The Human-Computer” which she disliked since she believed that the human mind is better than computers. Her family was orthodox Kannada Brahmin. Her father joined the circus as a trapeze artist, lion tamer, tightrope walker, and magician. Her father was strongly against being a temple priest, a career which his father wanted him to pursue. Shakuntala’s father discovered her daughter’s gift of calculation when teaching her card tricks when she was three years old. Afterward, her father left the circus and took her to roadshows to display her amazing gift. The child prodigy was a natural with complex calculations although she had no prior education. When she turned six years old, her first demonstration was at the University of Mysore to demonstrate her arithmetic abilities. Shakuntala married in the 1960s to Paritosh Banerji, who was an officer of the Indian Administrative Service at Kolkata. They divorced later in 1979. With Shakuntala’s gift of mental calculation, she traveled all over the world. She toured around Europe in 1950 and New York City in 1976. In 1988 she traveled to California to have her talents studied. The professors completed tests on her ability to calculate large numbers and the cube root of large numbers. The professors were fascinated with her abilities as she was able to calculate the total faster than the professors could copy the numbers down. Shakuntala performed amazing feats like one in 1977 at Southern Methodist University. She gave the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds which cannot be calculated by a regular calculator. She competed against a Univac computer which took 62 seconds. Another feat took place in 1980 when she was in the Department of Imperial College London. She calculated two 13-digit numbers which were generated randomly in 28 seconds. Her feat was recorded in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records. Other than a mental calculator, she worked as an astrologer, motivational speaker, and author. She wrote several books on methods to do mental calculation, cookbooks, and novels. She even wrote a documentary about homosexuals in India. She was interested in the topic as her divorced husband is one and she wanted to understand more. As an astrologer, Shakuntala wrote a book to teach others how to do horoscopes. She discusses zodiacs, planets, asterism, rising signs, Bhavas, Yoga, and Dasas. The book focuses on helping amateurs read their own horoscope or others. Shakuntala was admitted to the Bangalore hospital in April 2013 due to respiratory problems. For two weeks, she had complications with the heart and kidneys. She passed away on April 21st, 2013. She was 83 years old and had one daughter, Anupama Banerjee. Her daughter loved her mother and was happy when a bio-documentary film was made in 2019 about her mother. She was very happy with how the film was made. I first heard of Shakuntala from my husband. My husband was inspired by her since he has the same ability as Shakuntala. My husband is not as good as he still needs a pen and paper but he tried to teach me and the kids. My kids are a lot better than me. I remember my husband telling me about Shakuntala going to his high school in India when he was around 15 years old to do a demonstration. She would let the students pick random huge numbers and would write the answer immediately. He told me all the students were amazed by her ability. My husband also mentioned that during the demonstration, she would explain her methods and also answer questions from the students. After researching her, I appreciated how multitalented she was. With her gift, she wanted to educate others and spread knowledge across the world. She would go to schools, colleges, and other venues to educate others for free. She was even a novelist, wrote cookbooks, motivational speaker, and astrologer. I was even shocked when she wrote a book about homosexuality. I would think she would be more private about that subject since it closely related to her but I see that she has an open mind and will do the research before coming to a conclusion. After reading about her, I plan to watch her documentary “Shakuntala Devi” which came out in 2019.