Genius and Gifted ‘Human Calendar’ Antony Lobo is an ‘Adult Prodigy?’
Mangaluru: Child prodigies get a lot of attention because they seem magical. But do you know who’s even more impressive? Adult prodigies. I’m talking about people in their thirties, forties, fifties and beyond — people who are miles past any of the “learning windows” for talent, and who yet succeed in building fantastically high-performing skill sets. We tend to explain adult prodigies with the same magical thinking as we use to explain child prodigies: they’re special. They always possessed hidden talents. And here is one such whom you can call as an ‘Adult Prodigy’ at the age of 50? or he could be a ‘Savant”.
At first glance, Antony Lobo, aged 50 looks like a regular common man – but ask him a few questions about future dates and you’ll realize that he’s actually a mathematical genius with superhuman computational skills. This man can work out the day on which any date falls, up to the year 3000, within seconds – faster than his friends can remember their mobile number? Anthony is a prodigy who has a brain like a computer and works like a computer, that has the entire calendar of human existence fed in his mind.
Hailing from Shirva in Udupi District, Antony studied till 10th standard at St Mary’s Jr College-Shirva and then started doing some odd jobs here and there, until he joined a restaurant in Mangaluru decades ago. Since the restaurant that he worked for many years closed recently, he joined as a server at Hotel Ganesh Coffee House in Urwa Store-Mangaluru five months ago. Antony discovered his unique skill earlier at age 12 when he was talking about birthdays and found that he could accurately predict the days of his friends’ birthdays several years into the future. His unique talent has now made him popular as an adult prodigy and he regularly entertains audiences with his precise predictions.
He can tell you the exact day if you tell him the date and year; He can memorize more than 200-300 mobile and telephone numbers. He knows the history, like date of birth or their date of death of many renowned persons like Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Kannada actors Late Dr Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, and many more- and he tells it within a couple of seconds. Working at the restaurant he not only serves snacks and beverages to hotel customers, he also has been entertaining them with this unprecedented skill with marking any date with its day from history, or future.
Ask Antony a date in a calendar, he will tell you the exact day, it could be present, past or future. He can tell without any assistance the essence of a month of a year – he knows which year in the past and which one in the future will have the exact calendar, and which date and day come together in which years. He proved his skill by saying how many times the present month February 2017 has and will be same until the year 3000- he said 173 times since 1-1-0001. Like the present February 2017, will be the same in the year 2051. Amazing but true, if you check it out using your computer! You’ll be surprised when he gives you the right answers?
Still unmarried, he spends most of his time in Mangaluru and only visits his hometown once or twice a month. Antony said that he even surprised his principal- Louis Mendonca when he was doing his schooling at St Mary’s Jr College-Shirva, by telling Mendonca his exact day of his birth, marriage etc. Since then as a student and even now at age 50 as an adult, Antony still has that skill which he says is the gift of God, and nothing else. For his amazing and unbelievable talent, he has been felicitated by a few organizations, but he is looking for more support from the public.
