Columnists

Graveyard of Broken Dreams:
Vashishta Narayan Singh

T. SHER SINGH

Through much of my schooling, I enjoyed studying mathematics the most. And I was good at it.

I remember how, when I was once asked by a visiting dignitary about my favourite subject, I unhesitatingly blurted out “Maths”, and was for ever teased thereafter as a result for being a nerd.

It was therefore natural that I gravitated to it when I started university.

In the very month I turned 16, I joined Science College to pursue a Bachelor’s in Science.

The college had a beautiful campus and was renowned for a string of great mathematicians it had produced. When I started my school-year, the name on everyone’s tongue was Vashishta Narayan Singh who had only recently attended the college and had since moved on.

[He is not a Sikh, despite his last name, ‘Singh’. Nor is he to be confused with a Bihari politician with a similar name.]

Vashishta’s name was always mentioned in reverential tones. He was a child prodigy, thus went the legend, discovered and whisked away to America, his genius stolen from India! Being students of Science College, we felt immense pride that he had been its alumnus and it was from here that he was snatched away by Berkeley only three years before.

Every story I heard about him grew in leaps and bounds, making his age younger with every retelling, his mental exploits larger than life. He was compared with Albert Einstein.

His ‘loss’ to the West was described in hushed tones … a romanticized mixture of envy and a sense of betrayal and disappointment, added with the realization that indeed he could reach his potential only in the advanced West.

His name was known to every educated Bihari, and to mathematicians far and wide. It was a rags-to-riches story, but with a twist. This one wasn’t about money. It was about intellect of the highest order, in the realm of pure genius.

Through the years since, even though I wandered away from the sciences and found a home in English Literature, I’ve often wondered about him, and even asked after him whenever I’ve met someone from those parts: about where Vashishta was, where he had ended up. Everybody knew of him but nobody seemed to know anything new. Words like “Berkeley” and “NASA” and “Space Program” were thrown around, but little else.         

Until a few days ago.

He’s back in the news for a bit in India, a momentary prick to the nation’s conscience, before he’ll be relegated once again, I fear, to be forgotten again.

He’s still described by many as “the greatest mathematician alive”. Many still cite the name of Albert Einstein when talking about him. But now, there is an added reference point: Stephen Hawking. And a nod to Hollywood’s “A Beautiful Mind”.

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve managed to piece together the facts of Vashishta’s story and trace his trajectory.

He was born on April 2, 1946 in an obscure village called Basantpur, about 70 km north-west of the state capital of Patna (where I lived). He was the son of a local police constable. The family barely eked out an existence.

Located in the heart of Bhojpur district, Basantpur is unconnected with the world. You can’t get to it by car. You either walk to it or bicycle in. The area’s sole claim to fame is that it provided the indentured labour that the British transplanted into the Caribbean during the Raj. Hence the sweet sing-song of the Bhojpuri dialect of Bihari Hindi (recently brought to the fore by Bollywood’s “Gangs of Wasseypur”) thrives even to this day on the tongues of their descendants (a la V.S. Naipaul) living in Guyana and similar former British colonies.  

In the words of one recent visitor, Basantpur today is a village “where development is yet to come”.

Through some quirk of fate -- or the sheer luminescence of Vashishtha’s mind -- his teachers in the school nearby saw that he was a prodigy. In his world, figures and mathematical concepts were mere putty.

They managed to secure him a scholarship in an ambitious experimental boarding school that had recently been established in what was then a remote and isolated resort called Netarhat, perched in the hills near Bihar state‘s historical summer capital, Ranchi. [Both now fall within the newly carved state of Jharkhand.]

The Netarhat School, soon to become renowned on its own merit, nurtured the young boy, recognized his potential, and fast-tracked him into the B.Sc. Program in Science College in Patna, by 1961, when he was but 15 years old.

A “topper” in every exam he sat in, legend has it that soon thereafter he had to be transferred into the M.Sc. program in a desperate attempt to gauge his true abilities and cater to his level.

An international conference on Mathematics being held in the neighbouring campus of the then prestigious Bihar College of Engineering drew in young Vashishtha, who couldn’t resist questioning and challenging a number of established theories being touted by the attending scientists.

One of them, a Prof John L. Kelley, a department head from the University of California Berkeley, was intrigued by the young man. It is reputed that the professor, intrigued by the depth and novelty of Vashishtha’s thinking, put a number of follow-up questions before him.

Vashishtha created an instant commotion by dazzling all the brilliant minds with his own.

Not one to waste time or opportunity, Prof Kelley convinced all concerned that Vashishtha needed a bigger, better gladiatorial arena than what India could offer. Things were moved at super-speed and Vashishtha was whisked off to Berkeley.

Where, in quick succession, he earned his M.Sc. in Mathematics, followed by a Ph.D. His dissertation: “Reproducing Kernels and Operators with a Cyclic Vector.”

By now a professor and a scientist, he was pulled into the NASA program and worked for them for several years.

There are stories of Vashishtha falling in love with his mentor’s daughter and their plans to get married.

His family back in Basantpur would have none of it. He was going to be their ticket out of destitution, what with the fat dowry he could secure, given his fame and international stature.

Vashishtha too was haunted by his good fortune and the way his life had taken off like a comet. He yearned to head home and put his talents to use in his matrabhoomi -- motherland! 

His family knew exactly which buttons to press. Ultimately, parental pressure won.

In 1972, Vashishtha headed home, single, to serve India, the land of his birth.

His marriage was arranged with the daughter of an army officer based in distant Jaipur.

It didn’t last long.

The marriage couldn’t have been easy. He was from an obscure village, from an impoverished background. She was from a big city; an army officer‘s family life is quite worldly. He had seen the world and tasted fame. She hadn’t. And, to boot … he was a mathematical genius, with no interest in anything but his work. 

He taught at the IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) in Kanpur. And at the TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research) in Bombay. And the ISI (Indian Statistical Institute) in Calcutta.
 
These years weren’t easy. Lack of support and resources; bureaucratic pettiness; jealousy and envy from his colleagues; his own eccentric and introvert nature; all must of have proved to be contributing factors.

He spiralled into depression.

Within 5 years of his return to India, he had to be treated for mental illness. And was then diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was admitted to the well-known psychiatric facility in Kanke, Ranchi, where he spent a decade and made measurable progress.

But along came a politician who needed the ‘bed’ in the much sought after institution for his own relative. And pulled the necessary strings. Vashishtha was prematurely released and left to fend for himself.

Distressed at being abandoned in his village, he disappeared one day and his whereabouts remained unknown for several years.

In February 1992, he was spotted sifting through garbage at a dump, foraging for food, in a small town called Siwan. He was now homeless, a mere statistic amongst the hundreds of millions of destitute in the country to which he had given his all to help improve it.

Ever since, he has been languishing in Basantpur.

From time to time, someone mentions his name. Politicians and Bollywood icons trudge all the way into his village for photo-ops, decrying the neglect shown to him by his country, and promising him immediate help.

And then they go home and forget him the next day.

This week, 21 years after he was found wandering on the streets in a distant town, hungry, barefoot and in tatters, his predicament has once again pricked the nation’s conscience.

Earlier this year, a news story had highlighted his current condition … again.

The social media picked up the details, and there’s been a kerfuffle of uncomfortable grunts and whimpers. The politicians are embarrassed.

So, reluctantly, 41 years after he gave up his career to help build India, the government has announced that he is to be rescued from his hut in Basantpur and given a position of “visiting professor’ in the Bhupendra Narayan Mandal University in Madehepura.

Frankly, I’ve never heard of this university.

Never heard of the city or town of Madhehepura either.

The last census lists it as a town of about 45,000 souls. That’s a village, according Indian standards.

It has a university?

That can handle an Albert Einstein and a Stephen Hawking?

It’s in the middle of nowhere. Literally. Nearby towns ring memories of a distant past: Forbesganj and English Bazaar.

What is Vashishtha Narayan Singh going to do there?

Does it have the doctors he needs?

Will it engage his mind, which is what he says he needs to remain sane and functional, every time someone turns up in his hut to interview him.

Pressured by the media coverage to finally do something for this penniless 67-year old, they have had him picked up from Basantpur and dropped off in Madhehepura.
        
When asked about how and what compensation the new visiting professor will receive from the university, Registrar B N Vibeka says that a decision on that score has yet to be made. So far … nothing!

I suspect, knowing India, they’re just waiting for the media story to die again. And then, Vashishtha’s brother and nephew who have accompanied him to Madhehepura can then take him back to Basantpur.

Where he can go back to scribbling equations and formulae with his pencil on discarded newspapers.

To sleep out his remaining days of broken dreams. And then be buried with the country’s future.

April 22, 2013

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