THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: One skill he picked up after watching his seniors, another he taught himself during the Covid lockdown, and a third he developed through classes have come together to earn 13-year-old Saayan Sandeep a unique honour. Having recently made it into the Asian Book of Records for a triple challenge of solving a 3x3 Rubik’s Cube in 36.38 seconds while rollerskating and making abacus calculations, the Class 8 student calls the achievement a dream-like moment.
After nearly five months of practice between July and November last year, he was required to mentally solve dictated addition and subtraction problems involving single-digit integers as part of his record attempt. The challenge was complex — mentally find the answer to the randomly selected abacus problem dictated to him, along with solving the Rubik’s Cube in the shortest possible time, while skating continuously.
Adhering to the rules put forward by the organisers of the event, they recorded a video of Saayan’s triple challenge, which earned him the India Book of Records in November 2025 and the Asia Book of Records in July this year, as the fastest person to accomplish the task.
“With my practice over the years, I think Rubik’s Cube solving has become a muscle memory for me. Now, I’m also strong at doing abacus calculations mentally. So my primary focus was on skating during the video shooting of the record attempt,” Saayan told TNIE. A resident of South Paravoor in Ernakulam district, he said he had always wanted to learn how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. “And when the Covid lockdown happened, when I was in Class 2, I learnt it myself from YouTube,” he said.
Always fascinated by how the ‘chettanmar’ (seniors) in his school would skate, Saayan too stepped into the skating shoes when he entered Class 4. And soon, all these skills became part of his life, said his parents, Sandeep and Lency.
While other students in his abacus class would sing while doing calculations as part of their annual demonstration event, Saayan did the same while solving Rubik’s cube.
“Whatever he does, be it watching TV or talking to people, he would always have the Rubik’s Cube in his hand, which is why we decided to go ahead on this route,” his mother Lency said.
For Saayan, the record was neither in his plans nor his finish line. Continuing his practice in all three skills, passion comes first and achievements later.
