Arjun Ayyangar could read headlines of newspaper and magazine articles as well as Dr. Seuss Books. He learned the Hindi, Tamil, and Urdu alphabet from his grandmother, Saroja, and then learned to read words in those languages.

Saroja also taught Arjun addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts and computations. By age 2, he could add two, three digit numbers and multiply two, three digit numbers. He also memorized multiplication tables up to 12×12 (one table per day) by listening to a cassette supplied by his grandmother. Arjun’s father, Vijay, taught him to find the square and square roots within those tables and to recite the powers up to 10 of numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10.

Since musical toys were of most interest to Arjun, his parents bought him a Play by Numbers song book from which he quickly learned to play nursery rhymes on a toy keyboard. Although no one in his family has a musical background, Arjun’s passion for music inspired his parents to purchase a standard electric piano keyboard. Two-year-old Arjun used it to compose numerous short tunes which he could retain weeks later.

Before he was 3 years old, Arjun started piano lessons with Antonio Gandia. All instructions were videotaped which Arjun watched during days between lessons.

(2002)