CHENNAI: Shilpa Raghupathy was in her early 20s when she first met Shakuntala Devi in 2009. Having completed her engineering studies, Shilpa was struggling to find a job due to the prevailing recession. She was to be interviewed to work for Devi as her secretary. While it would be considered normal to be intimidated in the presence of a great mathematician — not out of fear, but awe — Shilpa was not. “When I met her I didn’t know who she was. I know it’s shocking to anyone with whom I share this,” laughs Shilpa. Devi, however, rejected Shilpa because she was overqualified for the post.
“My father and I had to request her to give me a chance. She agreed and told me it was just for a few weeks, but I ended up working for more than a year. She was not rude or arrogant when she spoke. She was very knowledgeable,” recalls the 34-year-old. While Devi touched Shilpa’s life in just 18 months, for some others like Shivdev Deshmudre, the Math genuis’ friendship was a lasting one. Shivdev first met Devi in 1981, as a client, at the advertising firm he had co-founded.
“At that time, she was into astrology and wanted to publicise it. While she remained one of the esteemed clients of the firm, we also remained friends till the end,” says Shivdev, who is the founding trustee of Shakuntala Devi Educational Foundation Public Trust. Remembering Devi as enthusiastic and full of life, he opens up, “She had once visited me in my office. I was supposed to give her a breakdown of some costs. Since her calculations were impeccable, I requested her to check.
She immediately replied, ‘You do it. I don’t want to waste my brain on you’,” laughs Deshmudre, recalling her (good) sense of humour. Despite having spent a large part of her life in London, Devi didn’t forget her roots. “Her Kannada was excellent, and she spoke without any accent. She loved akki roti and holige that my wife made,” recollects Shivdev. Not just south Indian food, Devi loved food, asserts Raj Bhasin, a trustee at her educational trust.
“Whenever she used to land in Bengaluru, I would get a call to keep makkai ki roti and sarson da saag for her, since I am a Punjabi. She was so fond of food that she even wrote many cookbooks,” says Bhasin, who met Devi 15 years ago. As we gear up to watch Devi’s passion for Math, and zest for life, in Shakuntala Devi — Human Computer, here’s raising a toast to the mother of Maths, who never lost her childlike effervescence.