Celebral palsy-afflicted girl brings home prestigious national award

Trichy :

Finding the exact day of any given date in 110 years is not an easy task for most people, but N Priyanka, a 14-year-old girl affected with cerebral palsy, can accomplish that within a five seconds. This extraordinary talent has brought national recognition to the Trichy girl, who has just got back from meeting the Indian President.

Priyanka, daughter of N Kannan and B Banu, won the ‘national award for the empowerment of persons with disabilities’ last week, presented by President Pranab Mukherjee at New Delhi. She met the collector and received accolades from the district administration and a cross-section of people on Monday.

She showed off some of her talent at the grievance day hall here in the presence of district collector Jayashree Muralidharan, instantly calculating the day for the dates mentioned between 1941 and 2050. Her questioners needed to check the calendars to ascertain the answer, but Priyanka never required any outside help

Though she is affected with cerebral palsy and mental retardation, this Class 8 student of Ramakrishna middle school in Puthur has an extraordinary memory power. The discovery of her talent was purely accidental. Her mother, K Banu, tells the story, which took place sometime in June this year.

“I was trying to figure out the day of August 17, 2014 to apply for a leave to attend a function. To my surprise, my daughter said that it was Sunday within a few seconds. When I cross checked with the calendar, her answer was perfectly correct,” she said, who is a caretaker in a private school in the city.

Unlike some normal people who have such talent, but who may have to depend on some formula to find out the day, Priyanka relies solely on her memory power.

When her teacher asked her how she could find out the answer within a fraction of second, she simply said with a smile, “I don’t know, madam.”

She is also capable of listing out the dates of a day in all weeks in a month. For instance, if we want to know the dates of ‘Wednesday’ in a month, she will list out the dates within few seconds.

Her father Kannan, who is an auto rickshaw driver, proudly says that this is only the first step for his daughter, ahead of a brilliant future.

“It takes only two to three seconds for my daughter to find out the days. I feel her talent can help children like her. My aim is to make her a doctor to serve the poor people,” said Kannan.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Trichy / TNN / December 09th, 2014