Master of mathemagics

"Memory is neither good, nor bad. In reality it is either trained or untrained.” Who would dare question the statement made by the memory wizard and mathemagician Minoo Jokhi?

Today he enthralls audiences doing six digit multiplication in 70 seconds or finding squares of numbers from 1,00,001 to 10,00,000 in 75 seconds or perfect square roots of numbers between 10,201 to 10,00,000 in 15 seconds or remembering tables up to one crore, as mentions his website: www. minoojokhi.com But there was a time when, as a student of Bombay’s Hindi Vidya Bhavan "I was so weak that I couldn’t manage simple tables from 2 to 9,” he confesses.

Number wizard Minoo Jokhi

Instead of running away from his weak point, he chose to make it his greatest asset. He remembers the turning point in 1992 when he was studying in the ninth standard. On the encouragement of his mother Kety he spent hours, adding and subtracting bus and car numbers. Within six months he had progressed to multiplying the digits and thereafter there was no looking back. His mother informed his principal of his mathematical prowess and that same year he staged his first public performance in school.

The child who had doubted whether he would ever progress in life was able to hone his skills and earn invitations from other prestigious schools, colleges, clubs and companies to demonstrate his mathematical genius. More than 65 leading Indian publications have featured him over the years and on 10 occasions he has faced a television audience, notes his life profile.

With over 375 shows to his credit the 30-year-old performs different feats to the amazement of the audience. At community events too Jokhi is frequently invited. He was given a platform at the 14th North American Zoroastrian Congress in Toronto in 2007 as also at the 7th World Zoroastrian Congress in Houston in 2000. In 2006 he was the only youth speaker at the Quest for Global Healing Conference in Indonesia and between 2002-2007 he visited Sri Lanka five times to perform at the International Medical Congresses. Religiously inclined, he likes to speak on spiritual topics and had participated in the Parliament of World Religions in Spain in 2004.

The three laws of memory which he urges his fans to cultivate are: imagination, observation and concentration. He cites an example of how his observation taught him that 12x12=144 and when the digits are reversed, 21x21=441. We are also told how to mentally multiply two same digit numbers ending in 5 e.g. 65x65 and easily arrive at the answer 4225. The last digit being 5 for both, when multiplied the answer will end at 25. To find the numbers preceding 25, take the first digit ‘6’ of the original number and multiply it with one higher i.e.7, to give 6x7=42. Thus we get the final solution 4225. For any given date from January 1, 1600, he can instantly tell you the corresponding day of the week.

"I believe that every child is intelligent. When children are pressurized to learn and show good results, they get stressed out. This is what results in failure and frustration. Children should be encouraged to the utmost to realize the potential talents and skills that they possess,” conveys Jokhi.

His memory development classes are attended not just by children but by people of all ages where he offers Memory Enhancement Technique Courses at various levels — basic, advanced, super­advanced, etc. While most of the lessons have been imparted at south Bombay, he has conducted classes at Dadar and Andheri too, he points out. The duration of his courses being 15 hours each, he gives the participant the option of completing it within five or seven days, choosing group lessons or one-to-one interaction. In the last five years he has trained over 800 students, teaching them to cultivate their memory such that things learnt once need never be forgotten. At the corporate level, he has been invited to conduct sessions by the HDFC Bank, Bombay Chartered Accountants Society and the Bombay Port Trust where his mother worked. For the future he plans to share his knowledge on the subject by writing a book on memory development.

What happens when memory weakens with advancing age? we enquire. "The absent-mindedness noticeable with increase in age is due to lack of concentration. At my course there is one special session on yoga and meditation to address this problem,” says Jokhi.

It is not only mathematics and memory aids that Jokhi likes to speak on. He also teaches personality development, public speaking, yoga, basic and advanced English, acting and computers, and offers numerology consultations. Lawn tennis is yet another field in which the versatile Jokhi has been excelling, winning trophies at the Club level. In 2005 he was awarded the title of "Arithmetic Genius” by the International Federation of Astrologers.

Not just a tutor but also a friend-cum-guide to his students, Jokhi is driven by an insatiable "hunger to learn and teach.”

The mathematical wizard can be contacted on his mobile: 9821407519, resi: 22182246 or e-mail: minoojokhi@ rediffmail.com