She may have only been on the planet for two years but Rakshitha Kumar has a formidable knowledge of the world.

Standing at just under 3ft tall and the proud owner of a Minnie mouse top, the Edinburgh toddler can reel off the capital cities of 195 countries.

What began as a simple game with her mother has led to the unveiling of an unusual talent.

"It happened by chance," says her father Ramesh, who works as a project manager for the Royal Bank of Scotland's technology department.

"My wife and daughters came over from India to the UK in March and on the flight we were keeping her occupied, telling her that the capital of India was New Delhi and the place we were going was London."

It was an innocent game, a way to keep a restless child amused on a long flight, but Rakshitha had a surprise in store for her parents.

"The day after we arrived she suddenly announced all the names we'd told her," says Ramesh. "We hadn't expected her to remember."

Realising her interest in the game, her parents went out and bought her a book, a children's copy of all the countries in the world and all their capital cities.

"We thought, well if she's interested in this then we'll show her a few more," says Ramesh.

"We got her the book and she really liked it. In a week she'd learned 30 countries."

Playing the game each day with her mother, Kavitha, who also had Rakshitha's little sister to look after, the toddler began to pick up more and more cities.

"We thought well let's just show her all of them and see what she remembers," says Kavitha.

"In the space of two or three months she'd learned them all."

It wasn't just the capital city game that Kavitha noticed captivating her young daughter's memory talent.

If she sang Rakshitha a song once, the little girl was able to sing it back to her word perfect, her memory seemingly comfortable with immediate retention.

"Even when I sing her a lullaby and I think she's sleeping, the next day she'll be up and about singing it back to me," says Kavitha.

Her parents first noticed Rakshitha had a passion for learning back in India, where their daughter learned to speak whole sentences sitting on her grandfather's lap.

As her first teacher, Rakshitha would happily repeat his words after him and she still begs her parents to read to her every day.

"We're not quite sure where to start now with her," says her father. "We're worried she might get bored so we'll have to look at keeping her mind busy."

For now, the family are happily enjoying their time in Scotland until Ramesh's contract ends.

As for Rakshitha, she has already moved onto learning all of the colours.

She's starting with orange, but we're sure it won't take her long.