Picture before you the most indomitable of all challenges. Your hands are shaking, you grit your teeth as sweat pours down your face, and there are tears threatening to make themselves visible. You want to scream with the incomparable frustration that comes with failing to solve even a single side of a Rubik’s cube.
Bhargav Narasimhan can solve one in a matter of seconds. He has two Asian Records, and is ranked fifth in the world at solving a Rubik’s cube. At 22, he has broken the Guinness World Record for solving five Rubik’s cubes using a single hand in a minute and 23 seconds.
“Rubik’s cubes have fascinated me ever since I was a kid,” says Bhargav. “My cousin taught me the basics, and I decided to take it up seriously when I was 17,” he adds. He can solve a single cube in a little under ten seconds; but this didn’t come easily. “I wasn’t a natural at all when I first started,” he laughs, “It took me five years to figure everything out; there weren’t many resources to help me train better.” The cubes he can solve range from a simple 2x2 to the complicated twelve-colour megaminx, a dodecahedron-shaped puzzle. “There’s a basic method I use to solve them,” he explains, “The most important step is the first, to lay a foundation on one side of the cube. You keep adding pieces of the same colour to one side, and once you’ve solved that, the others become much easier.”
On March 1, he set out on his first attempt to break a Guinness World Record, an ambition that he’s had as a child. “I’d never attempted anything on that scale before and they have a lot of off-beat events you can compete for, such as solving it underwater, while skydiving or while running a marathon,” he says. “I decided to stick with solving them with one hand for now.”
It was a Record that stayed undefeatable for five years, but Bhargav found himself calm before the event. “I knew I could break the original Record of one minute and 52 seconds because I’d done it at my practice sessions. I just hoped that would carry through on the day.” He was given seven attempts. He did it on his first, in one minute and 30 seconds. “I felt relieved when it happened,” he says, “Then, there was the pressure of breaking my own Record. I couldn’t do it until my last attempt, when I was finally able to solve all five cubes in a minute and 23 seconds.”
A pharmacy student who is working on his doctoral thesis, Bhargav balances classes and his passion by keeping his practice sessions at two hours a day. “Rubik’s cubes help my concentration,” he explains. “I’m able to study much better and pick up things faster.” Bhargav may attempt another Guinness Record in the future, but for now, he’s focusing on the World Cube Association and moving up in the ranks.
Most importantly, he is more than satisfied with where stands.
