LAHORE: It was an unexpected journey that Natalia Najam had begun during the days of the lockdown, after school was closed down. Her parents had taken her out of her school and the nine years old was being homeschooled by her mother.

Being a pet lover, Natalia – who was already the owner of two dogs and two cats, wanted yet more pets at home, and so asked her parents if she could get them, but was given a very strange condition. If she really wanted the pets, she must learn at least 10 elements from the periodic table of elements.

The table which is often frantically referred to by slightly older students for weight and formula, was soon learnt completely by heart by the little girl. The once-foreign sounding elements had now reached familiarity.

Her proud mother Sheena says that the whole exercise was done in memory of how her father gave her conditions when she was a child.

“When I was a child, and I wanted something my father’s one and only condition was for me to read a book,” she says. “It is a wonderful exercise for young minds, especially when there is nothing for them to do. It is a challenging thing for the brain.”

Sheena says that she has now taken her daughter out of school and plan to home school her. “During the entire lockdown we have taken advantage of this time, spending it together. As she began learning the table, which started off as just a random request, she began absorbing the information more and more, and soon I began looking up information on it only to stumble across information about the world record.”

By the end of it all, Natalia had broken an Indian Chemistry Professor’s Guinness record (who had previously broken a Pakistani’s record), by being the fastest to arrange all elements of the periodic table (in 2 min 42 seconds). This was announced by Guinness on 18 July, 2020.She had broken the record by seven seconds.

Asked if they will celebrate, Sheena speaking for her daughter said “At the moment we are all simply overwhelmed and grateful by everyone who has called to congratulate; Natalia is also overwhelmed. We have calls coming from left and right,” she said.

The objective was to break the world record before August 14, and this being done had a ‘feel good value’ to it, said Sheena.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2020