Meghali Malabika Swain with the world map and Baivaba Panigrahi presents her poetry collection to chief minister Naveen Patnaik. Picture by Gopal Krishna Reddy and Telegraph picture

Berhampur/Bhubaneswar, Nov. 18: Have you ever seen a kindergarten toddler recite a rhyme without fumbling? Well, a five-year-old girl of St. Vincent Convent School, Berhampur, can name all the 193 countries of the world without pausing for a second and identify the national flags of different countries. Name any country and she can pinpoint it on a globe.

Meet Meghali Malabika Swain, who is no less than an encyclopaedia and can put many 15 or 16-year-olds to shame. Which is the oldest mountain system in India? Which is the longest river of the world? Which country has three capitals? Meghali can tell you in seconds. “Aravalli range, River Nile and South Africa. The three capital cities are Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein,” pat came the reply. “My daughter has a special interest in geography and is very thorough about it,” said her proud father Prafulla Kumar Swain, an Odisha Administrative Services (OAS) officer and the deputy collector of Silk City.

Meghali was just four years old when her father first noticed her talent. “I was giving geography lessons to an OAS aspirant and Meghali was present in the room. She grasped the names of 25 countries in an hour’s time and took me by surprise. I started giving her some basic lessons in geography and I still can’t figure out how she remembered everything at such a tender age. She is truly blessed,” Meghali’s father said.

However, Prafulla admitted that initially he and his wife were worried about Meghali’s “aberration”. “I consulted several paediatricians and psychologists, because I wanted to know if there could be any negative consequences. But they said Meghali has the capability to resist mental pressure. We send her to school only twice or thrice a week. She never sits idle and is a bookworm,” her mother Nabanita said. .

Young writer

Baivaba Panigrahi, a Class VI student of St Joseph’s High School, Bhubaneswar, has compiled her thoughts about nature in a book — Me at Eleven. The 11-year-old poetess presented the first copy of her book to chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday. “I had heard of many writers presenting books to the chief minister and the governor. So I thought of doing the same. After all, our chief minister is also a writer and I wanted his feedback,” gushed Baivaba.

She met Naveen in his office for nearly 15 minutes. “He read some of my poems. He especially liked Just 1044, which is based on the fast declining number of tigers in the country, and one called Examinations. I also recited some lines from another poem Freedom isn’t free which is about soldiers sacrificing their lives for the motherland,” she said.

Baivaba said she aspires to become an IAS officer and a writer. Here’s hoping that we see her winning a literary award soon.

Have you achieved something extraordinary too? Tell us at ttorissa@abp.in