Micronesia, Marshall Island, Kiribati, Palau, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu — not many know the names of these island countries and smaller nations. Seven-year-old Arshabh Behera knows not only them, but also their flags and a little bit about the local culture.
Once diagnosed as a slow learner, with delayed speech issues, Arshabh Behera of Upper Kindergarten at Orchids The International School has since the pandemic won many talent contests thanks to his knowledge of flags of different countries.
He can identify flags of over 200 countries which has earned him a place in a record book. Arshabh’s parents started enrolling him in various global and national online talent contests. He carved a place for himself in the Forever Star Book of World Records this year by identifying 230 flags of nations in eight minutes.
“I want countries; I want flags,” says the boy, who is just learning to string sentences together. His house is full of flag books, mini globes and knowledge books that have kept him engrossed during the homebound days.
“I decided to teach my son differently. We were told about his speech delay issue when he underwent therapy for a while. He learnt to speak late. He was also taking time to pick up sentence construction. I decided to teach him by identifying different countries and cars from YouTube,” said mother Smruti Rekha Behera.
Soon Arshabh was only clicking on videos related to countries and flags and memorising as many of them as possible. He would also draw flags of different countries in his spare time.
“I like Brazil, Argentina and the US,” says the sevenyear-old, actually referring to the flags of these nations that have attracted him the most. Even during sports matches on TV, he is always on the lookout for flags of the participating nations, said his mother.
When other kids wanted toys, Arshabh would want his parents to buy him flag books. “Soon he knew titbits about little-known countries, their geographical locations, their people and culture. He has also been trying to pick up some Greek, Spanish and Russian words in the process. He would also solve puzzles on countries that were meant for 10-year-olds and above,” said Smruti.
“Arshabh is a very gifted child. As educators, we encourage holistic learning in children. They can learn from any platform, from everything around them. Arshabh’s interest in flags helped sharpen his mental skills in the process,” said principal Sharmili Shah.