By-Manish Kumar
(Tathagat Avatar Tulsi, the one who has glorified Bihar to the national and even international level through the heaps of records he bagged since his childhood is no more a child now. Termed as the “Child Prodigy of India” once and highly acclaimed by the national and foreign media, the Bihari boy is now an assistant professor at IIT-Mumbai. Last mid-year he completed his very first year there, that too as a teacher. Tathagat shares his experience of being a professor at one of the premier institutions of India. Excerpts from the interview.)
Last year you completed your very first year at IIT-Mumbai as a professor? How was your experience of being the teacher of the premier institution?
Well, overall experience was great. Getting adjusted to a new place takes some time and i also took some time for it, but there were no major difficulties initially (and not even now). In fact, the people at IIT are so cooperative that it was a very smooth transition. And then, I was always looking forward to join IIT Bombay, it was a dream place for me. So, in my initial days, I used to roam inside the IIT campus with a constant feeling that "wow, finally, I am here”.
As far as my work is concerned, last year was dominated by teaching. I had never taught earlier and not only that, my exposure to class-room lectures was very close to zero as I was mostly self-studied. So, I did not have any idea, what teachers do in the classrooms or how students react during the lectures. Indeed, I was a bit nervous for my first lecture. But after first few lectures, I became accustomed to it. But getting used to the lectures is different from being an excellent teacher and I am constantly trying to become the later and that needs few years of experience.
Sometimes, I find it interesting that a person, who never went to schools/colleges, who bunked all the lectures (these are symptoms of a bad student) is now a professor.
Unlike others, you must be finding yourself in a strange situation where the students most of them are of your age, how do they react?
Their behaviour is very nice and much disciplined; they treat me as a teacher without any consideration to my age. Initial teaching is always little difficult, because we need to prepare lecture notes, assignments, question papers and all those stuffs, which we never did earlier. But with little practice, all this became easy.
What about your colleagues, most of them must be in their 50’s?
Age is never a consideration in professional community, so they treat me just as a colleague (of course, a junior colleague), Even, I also don’t find age to be an issue as I am so much used to work with the people ahead of my age.
You rejected 2 job offers, one being from Waterloo University, Canada. What was the reason behind that rejection?
There were several personal reasons for it. Let me tell you that at one point of time, I was very keen to settle abroad and I was very enthusiastic when I visited USA for six months in 2005. Those 6 months were very crucial in transforming me in two ways, both personally and professionally. One major change was my decision to stay back in India. I don't want to dub it as”patriotism" but the emotions are indeed very complex. I was just unable to accept that one part of this world is so prosperous and another part is so struggling. I was 18, when I visited USA and at that age, everything leaves a strong impression, I got very much disturbed that I belong to a struggling part and despite that, I want to ignore this fact to accept the prosperous part.
During my childhood days, I had attended many public functions and got chance to meet lots of "aam aadmi", there were two types of "aam aadmi", one who used to wish me that do good in science and make an important discovery (i used to like this wish), another who used to "request" me that do something for our nation. I never understood this request but after my USA visit, all of a sudden, this became a major question for me: what I did for them? I am using "aam aadmi" because I have visited several village schools in my childhood days and I have personally witnessed the hopes and aspirations that these villagers have, from qualified people like us. Specially, in my case, they had known me through newspapers and their smiles, tears and hopeful eyes, while talking to me, is something that I cannot forget.
Describing the details of these changes will be too long, its better I stop here, I can only say that I developed a strong sense of love for our very own people.
Tell us about your Phd work that you did in IISc, Bangalore.
Well, I worked on quantum search algorithms during my PhD, which mainly deals with quantum computing. Quantum computer is something that we, the scientist, are looking forward to, since it has a tremendous potential to change the scenario of scientific research as well as tremendous industrial applications. Basically, quantum computer will be a very powerful computer that can easily solve the typical computational problems; we face in scientific research or industrial applications.
My topic: quantum search algorithms, is one of the applications of quantum computing. I thoroughly enjoyed working on it and i am continuing the same work here also. Whatever I have claimed in my thesis, I have also given the mathematical proof for that.
How you found Bangalore in the 7 years you spend there? Learnt Kannada little bit?
Well, learnt kannada only a little bit, my favourite kannada sentence used to be "nanu summage tamaashe madita ide" (I was just joking) because normally, I pass too many jokes. well, my Bangalore experience is something that I will cherish for my lifetime. I spent most of my teenage life there. My teenage period was not so smooth, mainly because of my early background and I faced many "strange" kind of problems (i write "strange" because most of the teenagers will not be able to even think of these problems), later I also successfully solved those problems. Bangalore is a close witness to that struggle of mine, how can I forget it?
How was your experience of IISc. It seems there was no discount given there because of your age when it came to performance.
To me, Bangalore means only IISc as I had not gone much outside the IISc campus during 7 years, so my IISc experience is same as my Bangalore experience. Yes, age never played any role in the academic work there. My advisors were Prof Apoorva Patel and Prof H R Krishnamurthy so of course, they are my favourites also.
How is Tathagat in real life, besides being a world record holder and an IIT professor?
I can only say that I am a person who continuously want to explore, evolve and enjoy. Since childhood, I am observing that what makes the two human beings different is the wealth of experience; I just want to maximise my own wealth of experience. So, I don't hesitate in trying anything new even if people around me suggest me to follow a traditional path. lets see, even now, I have much more to explore.
It seems your father had a great role in framing your life? Can you tell in detail, how crucial his role was in making Tathagat a world record holder?
Of course, my father's role was very crucial. I mean, you can figure it out from the fact that I was just a kid while making world records; I just used to tell my father what I want, without having any idea of what it really takes to get that. My father only managed to get all these things done through High Courts and Supreme Courts. He always believes that I am a "gifted" child, he is not a professional mathematician but when he found me to be doing so well in mathematics, it was a pleasant surprise for him. I was not only good in maths but I also had a natural ability to do fast mental calculations (i.e. to multiply two large numbers fast in my head, without using paper, pen and of course, calculator). It was this special ability that inspired my father to give his best to nurture my talent. and then the story started.
You hardly talked about your mother in any interview. Of course your father must have guided you in your professional life, but what about your mother, what support you got from her?
That’s a wrong accusation, my mother's support has been also very crucial and important and no one needs to describe the crucial role of mother in his or her upbringing, that is well-known.
Do you still use bicycle at the campus; I think many IITs give cycle to promote eco-transportation?
Yes, I use bicycle. Can’t say about eco-transportation but I don't know driving, the moment, I learn it, I will get a car.
Do you think Bihar has changed since the time you left Bihar?
I don't say that I have left Bihar, even now I am very much attached to it. Yes, change is the law of nature, Bihar has changed and it will keep on changing, hope that sometime I would be able to significantly contribute to its change.
The ups and downs of your life which taught you the lessons of life?
Well, all of us face too many ups and downs in life and same with me. But I would like to mention the biggest up and down in my life.
UP: When I was breaking world records
DOWN: When I was facing negative publicity
Again UP: COMING SOON.
I have indeed, learnt a lot from these experiences and even now, I am learning more.
In Germany, when you were invited with the Nobel laureates, some controversy came? What was that and why was that according to you? Heard that the foreign media took it the other way and some Indiamedia too backed it?
Nothing wrong happened with the foreign media, you can check the records. It all started with Indian media only. In an interview to Hindustan times, then HRD minister Shri M M Joshi ji said this about that incident: "one newspaper correspondent printed the story and others blindly followed the suit". I have to say the same thing with a more focus on the word "blindly". "blindly", because they never bothered to examine the facts, or even to take my statements, before writing a sensational story of a fraud prodigy, "blindly", because they never realized that they will write something extremely derogatory false news about a 14-year old who will not be able to handle the situation, "blindly" because they kept on publishing the same sensational story without caring that it will push someone to the state of extreme darkness, virtually making him blind in his own life.
I guess, in 2006, the Indian Parliament passed an amendment to the juvenile justice act this amendment strictly forbids the newspapers to publish the name or photo of any person, below 18, who is accused in a criminal case. Though I never got accused criminally, I will always have a regret that this amendment was done after 2001, had it been done before it, my life would have been much better, vo kehte hai na "meri zindagi mein aate, to kuchh aur baat hoti".
Don't want to talk much about it, kuchh zakhmon ko chherna nahi chahiye, hamesha dard dete hain.
Do you regret for not having a normal childhood anytime?
I do have some regrets, I don’t want to claim that I am a happy guy, I have got my own share of success as well as my share of failures. But I cannot say that I regret for not having a normal childhood, mainly because I have no idea of a normal childhood. I have experienced only my childhood and that was certainly not normal by any standard, so how can I regret something which I have never experienced.
Are you now fed up with many records and would like to say now this was too much, now i want to take rest! Or you are still ambitious and want to make some new records?
I never tried for making records, it all came very naturally, i was only eager to finish my studies at earliest and start my scientific research soon and I was successful to some extent since I started my doctoral research at 15.
Even now, i don't want to think of success in terms of records. but I am still very ambitious and want to achieve much more (ye dil maange more !!). Yes, I do take rest at a regular intervals, to keep myself fresh, one thing is sure that these days, I have realized the importance of a proper rest to maintain the work efficiency. So, now I treat rest also as work so that I can lie to myself that "wow, I am working 24x7”.
Some reports say your aim is to get the “Nobel prize”, is this dream or your main aim?
Nobel was my childhood dream. I was always inspired to study science in my childhood days and since Nobel is regarded as the symbol of global excellence in science, i made Nobel my dream as well as my main aim. But, let me clarify that this is not so now, I am a grown up person now and know that there are several criteria to measure excellence.
Interested in sports? How much time you spent per day on them?
Not much. I had played badminton for some time, but then got busy in my work and had to leave. I am planning to resume it again, I love this game, and it’s a very good aerobic exercise and a very good stress-reliever. May be I will start playing it for 2 hours in 3 days per week, planning to resume it next month.
What according to you are the shortcomings of Indian education system?
I don't belong to the standard education system, so how can i comment about it, but one thing I certainly feel is that the students should be allowed to take specialisations at an early age. For example, I was good in maths but not interested in other subjects so why I got the burden of studying other subjects in detail, similarly there are many students who just hate maths, why should they be forced to read maths in details. All of us are different with different abilities; let them sharpen their abilities in early childhood when they are biologically more flexible. We start specializing after 10th standard; can we shift the specialization few years back? It’s just my personal opinion. No need to take it seriously.
How difficult it was to face courts for every time you was about to create a record?
I cannot say about the difficulty as that was mainly faced by my father.
How was your meeting with Nitish Kumar?
I feel fortunate to have spent some quality time with all big leaders of Bihar, be it Nitish Ji, Modi Ji, Lalu ji or RamVilas ji.
It was just a normal conversation, where he expressed his wishes and blessings to me. I remember, once we had a photo session during a conference, I was standing a little far from him, when he noticed me, he pulled me towards himself and asked me to stand close to him, I was pleasantly surprised by this gesture, this is the way, elder people encourage youngsters and bless them to come forward and work for the society. I found him to be a very committed person with a vast pool of experience, which keeps him suitably balanced in all his actions and I guess, these qualities made him what he is today.
How Murli Manohar Joshi motivated you to join IISc?
I have met Joshi Ji on several occasions during my childhood days, as a then HRD minister, he was the key person to remove the minimum age barrier of 19 years specially for me to appear for the National Eligibility Test (commonly known as NET exam), a competitive exam conducted for determining the eligibility for lectureship as well as research fellowship. I wrote and qualified this exam at 13, and it was only possible because of Joshi ji's special permission.
Are you going to settle in life soon? Any marriage plans? Do you have any girl friend and a relation that you would like to disclose?
No girlfriends and nothing to disclose.
Many a times you must have faced problems in some offices when you share you qualifications details and others, they must have questioned how this it could be possible? Do u faced such kinds of problems. How often? Do you carry all media reports to support your records?
Yes, I do face these situations, but they are not problems for me, indeed I feel happy when they get shocked.
I don’t carry any media report, i just say that "trust me, if you can". But, one thing is true that I try my best to hide my background because mostly I have seen that after finding it, the normal friendly conversation stops and something unusual starts and I want to talk like friends, if I want to make friends. Well, it depends from person to person. If I figure out that he or she will like my different background, I just tell about it proudly, take my cellphone out, connect to the internet and show all web articles on me (no need to carry the media reports). With experience, my guess never goes wrong and friendship increases after this. In these situations, i only regret when my mobile does not get enough signal for a fast internet.
Almost all people have one or two inspirational teacher(s) in their life, who was that in your life?
Inspiration, I have mostly got from my parents, specially my father. Since I have done self-study during school days, I did not have any teacher in that sense.
Message to parents who build pressure on their wards to make them a “genius”?
Just develop a sense of responsibility in your children and then they are smart enough to give their best to be a responsible citizen, they will themselves figure out their strengths and weaknesses and then use them to the best level. Be responsible towards them, they need attention, praising them or criticizing them for a wrong reason will lead them in a very wrong direction.
What people say about Tathagat
1. RJ Shashi, Radio Mirchi, Patna- It was just an ordinary day on my radio show, but the synergy of my studio had suddenly undergone charismatic transformation since Tathagat arrived. The most striking part of Tathagat was, from the starting of the show he was carefully noticing my activities and how I operate all the equipments and all of a sudden he asked me, “Would I be able to handle all these complex instruments at a time like you?. I was astonished; this world renowned “prodigy” was asking this question. Also, his down to earth nature and simplicity is ample enough to impress anyone.
2. Goverdhan Mehta, Director, IISc, Bangalore
(He was the director when Tathagat was at IISc)
I met Tathagat a couple of times at IISc. I am pleased that he has earned his PhD and got an early start and a good position at a reputed institution to prove himself. Let us now be guided by his performance as judged by his peers. Showering further adulations by media without any hard evidence of solid accomplishments is neither good for him nor for science in India. I wish him well and hope that he will live upto the expectations.
