The abacus is alive

Who knew the abacus would have a come back?

A few months ago, I went to visit an abacus training academy in a central district of Hyderabad. I saw the advertisement pasted to a cement wall and followed the flyers to a small green stucco building with a rusted gate and no front door. I went upstairs and met Mr. Raganath, the PR and marketing manager of the academy. We spoke for a while about the abacus and its origins, and he showed me the basics:

The middle row of beads is called "our brother's house" and is where all calculations must start. To the left the beads represent whole numbers - going as high as the abacus is long, and to the right decimals.

Raganath continued: the abacus has the power to train the mind, not just for calculations, but for higher concentration and the exponential improvement of memory. The children are taught from the beginning to hold the abacus with their right hands and to tick the beads up and down with the index and thumb of the left. Index and thumb. This he said was an ancient technique, inexplainable, but used by rishis, buddhist monks, catholics chanting their rosaries. These fingers, he said, were the trick.

For proof, he told me to come back on Saturday around 2 for class.

On Saturday, the building looked even more deserted. But when I got to the second floor I heard the eruption of young voices and click click of the abacus:



The professor stood at the board, writing numbers in an endless string.... 87, 65, 104... and the kids would add, subtract, divide or multiply as they were told. I sat towards the back as they checked their workbooks. The kids ranged in age from 5 to 12 (I had repeatedly been told by Raganath that after thirteen the tactics and training 'just doesn't have much effect'. I instantly felt like somewhat of a failure.) The ones in the back had only begun the course two weekends prior. They seemed a little nervous, but they did the problems hungrily, trying to catch up with their classmates.

The star of the class was a boy named Deepti. He had won several international abacus competitions. He could not have been more than nine. He is the boy in the clip saying 'Amma-ma-ma-ma'. in Telugu this means 'mother' but in little kid speak, more like 'aw jeez..'.

While the beginningers clicked the beads, Deepti had his left hand in the air and with each number he would kind of vibrate his fingers, like he was counting imaginary beads, twirling an imaginary abacus.

Here is a compiling of the sounds of the day. I didn't cut the section when the instructor is reading out the problems simply so that you could set your watches to see how fast these kids calculate in their heads. (Excuse the jumps and auditory glitches, I am working on Audacity and there are some shortcomings on both sides).




These kids are amazing, and I have no doubt that the abacus is triggering something in their minds. But the question remains: what do the thumb and index finger have to do with concentration and memory?

I have asked a few neuroscientists in Hyderabad. Though they tell me there is an answer, they say they don't readily know what it is and that it would take too much rifling though notes and textbooks to find.

This only feeds my curiosity...