Vineeta Rao
Auckland, February 26, 2025
Where most 14-year-old children are busy playing video games, young Aaryan Shukla is out breaking records.
The child prodigy recently broke six Guinness World Records for mental calculation at a competition in Dubai, in 24 hours, which is a a record in itself.
Aaryan Shukla, who was competing against a clock, smashed through multiple mathematical benchmarks for mathematical speed and accuracy. His achievements have drawn comparisons to other great minds in mathematics such as Shakuntala Devi, Terence Tao and even the legendary Ramanujam.
A matter of Record
This is not Aaryan’s first brush with fame. Last year, he left a live audience astounded as he set the record for the fastest time to mentally add 50 5 – 5-digit numbers in just 25.19 seconds. As our more mathematically inclined readers know, this works up to approximately one addition every half a second!
Aaryan is from the Indian state of Maharashtra and is a class Nine student at a CBSE Board School. His mother Meenal tells us that Aaryan began demonstrating his skills at a very early age.
“At the age of six, he started the practice of mental calculation and he was very good, so we started doing some research on this. At the age of eight, he entered an international competition at which he won medals and trophies, which were great achievements,” she said.
In 2022, when he was 12, Aaryan won the prestigious Mental Calculation World Cup in Germany. And if that were not enough, he is also one of the founding board members of the Global Mental Calculators Association, an organisation dedicated to promoting mental calculation worldwide.
Parental Support
Aryan’s father Nitin Shukla says, “We have dedicated much of our time to Aaryan’s growth. His mother has been guiding him from a young age, and when he began mental math, it was clear he had exceptional ability for his age. We focused on helping him develop further and exposed him to various competitions.”
Aaryan is candid about the hard work he puts in. “Daily practice is one of the important aspects of preparing for competitions, so I practise for about five to six hours daily.” He also credits Sahaja Yoga meditation for helping him stay calm and focused during high-pressure calculations.
When asked to describe how he performs his mental calculations, Aaryan believes that his thought process is instinctive rather than conscious.
“A lot of things in mental calculations happen in a flash of a second, so I cannot say what happens inside my head, I just do it naturally. It is so fast that you cannot think, you just need to do the calculations,” he said.
If you think your child’s homework is tough, spare a thought for Aaryan’s parents, especially as his father Nitin admits that they are not a family of math wizards, saying, ”We are a normal family. Aaryan is a one-in-a-billion kind of person, but I do not think that we are a family of mental calculators.”
Pursuing other interests
They also ensure that Aaryan is grounded and indulges in activities and hobbies appropriate for children his age. So while he also plays video games, Aaryan enjoys reading adventure and mystery novels and playing cricket. His mathematical skills have also let him indulge in another hobby.
“I also love travelling and due to the mental maths competitions, I travel to many countries,” he says gleefully.
It is clear that young Aaryan Shukla has a bright future ahead but with so many accomplishments under his belt, he already has much to be proud of. As his father says “In the last eight years of his journey he has achieved so much, so I think he is not only hardworking and talented, but he is also gifted by the destiny to learn so many things at such a young age. He’s enjoying his journey, that is for sure.”
We hope that he continues to enjoy himself while making the most of his remarkable skills.
The Guinness Book
The Six Guinness World Records that Aaryan Shukla broke
The Fastest time to mentally add 100 4-digit numbers: 30.9 sec
The fastest time to mentally add 200 4-digit numbers: 1 min 9.68 sec
The Fastest time to mentally add 50 five-digit numbers: 18.71 sec
The Fastest time to mentally divide a 20-digit number by a 10-digit number (set of 10): 5 min 42 sec
The Fastest time to mentally multiply 10 sets of two five-digit numbers: 51.69 sec
The Fastest time to mentally multiply 10 sets of two eight-digit numbers: 2 min 35.41 sec
Vineeta Rao is an Indian Newslink Reporter in Auckland.
