On the table in front of a bespectacled 14-year-old boy are a number of Rubik’s Cubes of varying sizes—3X3, 7X7 and 13X13—and a blindfold. In less than three minutes, he solves around 12 cubes in quick succession. What comes next is what brought him global recognition and a place in the India Book of Records and the Asia Book of Records. Blindfolded, the boy, Affan Kutty, does a series of manoeuvres with robotic precision to display the English alphabet on all six sides of the cube in six different shades.
On November 18, Affan’s name entered the Limca Book of Records when he formed all 26 letters blindfolded on the cube in six minutes and 47 seconds. A class 8 student of a convent school in Mumbai, Affan’s rise to fame began 10 months ago, when his father Biju introduced him to a 3X3 cube to cure him of his cellphone addiction. “I had more than 500 TikTok videos and played several games on social media,” said Affan at a TED talk he gave recently in Goa. “PUBG was on my mind all the time because of which my health began to deteriorate and I was asked to stay away from it completely.” Affan picked up the skill from YouTube and, thereafter, began solving the cubes with increasing speed and accuracy.
But just how does he manage to form the right letter when he is blindfolded? “I follow a pattern,” he says. “The 7X7 cube has seven layers. I just minimise it in my mind so that I know exactly which layer to move in order to solve it and make the letter. So, the mind thinks and the hands work. I think I have perfected it by constant practice. There is nothing more to it. Anybody who is as piqued by the cube as I am and is willing to dedicate time and effort to it, can do it.”
When Biju took to the cube in his early 30s as a way of killing time in waiting rooms, he noticed that it calmed him and helped him focus better. So, when people told him that a child’s learning begins at the foetal stage itself, Biju proposed that his pregnant wife start cubing in the hope that one day, their child might learn the skill and take it to another level. It looks like his dream came true as, 13 years later, his son took to the cube like a duck to water. In less than a year, Affan went from being just another face in the crowd to a skilled cuber who is invited by schools and NGOs to speak about his experience of speedcubing letters and names while blindfolded.
He is a keen participant in international cubing events, especially those by the Los Angeles-based World Cube Association, and hopes to soon realise his dream of entering the Guinness Book of World Records. “I have noticed a marked improvement in my concentration and maths scores after giving up the mobile phone and learning to cube,” says Affan. “I devote three hours every day to cubing and even write birthday messages to my friends, blindfolded. They love it and their response motivates me to keep going.”