Great Mathematician...

Dear Friends,

This is a blog with a difference and with a request to all of you. Request is to give some time to read this blog because generally people don't give much attention to such mails. This is just for your awareness to this burning topic.

Being Indian Citizen we have some fundamental rights and some duties towards our country. One of the greatest duty is protecting our heritage. Hertitage does not mean only our Monuments, Culture, Music, Cuisine, and art only. It also consists our great people. I would not like to talk about politicians or our freedom fighters, bcoz that's not my point. I will focus on masterminds of Science and Technology.

• Dr. C.V. Raman (NOBEL LAUREATE)
• Dr. Hargoving Khurana (NOBEL LAUREATE)
• Dr. J.C. Bose (NOBEL LAUREATE)
• Dr. Vikram Sarabhai
• Dr H.J. Bhabha
• Satyendra Nath Bose
• P.C. Ray
• Birbal Sahni

But do you know about Dr. Vasistha Narayan Singh. Who is the the greatest Mathematician alive. Who travelled a lot in journey of his life from a typical undevloped villagein Bihar to USA, village primary school to Netarhat, Science College Patna and then University of California, Berkley, the life of name and fame to the life of mental disturbance and poverty. The mathematician who challenged works of Great Scientist Albert Einstien. It was related to his Theory of Relativity(E=MC2).

Yes it's a matter of shame for all Indian's. I'm providing a little amount of information about him because not much informations are available on net about this great Mathematician.

• His Village - Basantpur,(12 Km. from ARA), Bhojpur, Bihar
• Family - Poor Family, Father Constable in Bihar Police.
• Class X - Netarhat Vidyalaya - Gold Medallist in his passing year
• Class XII - Patna Science College

He is the record holder for Bihar Board in Matriculation Examination and Bihar Intermediate Education Council for Intermediate Exams Sciene College.

In earlymid 1960's Bihar College of Engineering Patna, was in much better shape and world class faculty members used to visit the College. There was some Mathematics Conference in Bihar College of Engineering during mid 60's where Prof John L. Kelley, HOD University of California, Berkley(UCB) as also present.

He had presented a list of 5 most difficult problems in Mathematics or so. Vasistha Narayan Singh solved all of them and that too in different ways.

This Berkley professor got impressed and requested him to come to Berkley for further study. Vasistha Narayan Singh told him that it would be difficult for him to come to US on his own. HOD promised all the help and kept the word. HOD arranged for visa and flight ticket and got him into UCB.

He took good care of Vasistha Narayan Singh at UCB as Vasistha Narayan Singh is a shy person. Vasistha Narayan Singh did not let down HOD and did his PhD with style and went on to work for NASA.

His Ph.D Dissertation Title was : Reproducing Kernels and Operators with a Cyclic Vector.

Following is the link of web page of UCB(Berkley) stating details of his Ph. D in 1969.

http://math.berkeley.edu/index.php?module=mathalumman&MATHALUM_MAN_op=sView&MATHALUM_id=1148

In the meantime, Family was asking him to come to India and get married. Vasistha Narayan Singh had nationalistic dreams and thought of doing his matribhoomi, Bharat, proud; rather that stay on in US as his HOD and NASA wanted him to do.

Please note that 60s was the time of great Social and Student Unrest in USA as Vietnam War and Hippy/LSD Movement was at its peak. UCB was the headquarters of this movement and drugs were commonly used to expand consciousness! (Watch Forest Gump to get some idea) Beetles also a product of this generation though they started in UK but became big in US.

It was rumoured that He had an affair with the daughter of his HOD at UC Berkely and wanted to marry her but parental pressure and idealistic dream of doing India proud took precedence and he came back to India. It is also rumoured, that he had started taking some drugs when he was in Berkley and it continued when he came back to India.

He came back and his parents got him married to an Army Officer's Daughter with some good dowry. This army officer was from Jaipur. Due to reasons unknown, marriage did not work out and his wife left him after sometime to never come back again to him. This left him heartbroken and made his condition worse.

He returned to India and worked at ISI Cal, IIT K and TIFR Bombay. He had a tough time at ISI Cal and was disillusioned at other places also.

Soon after that, He lost his mental balance and was admitted to Mental Hospital, Kanke, Ranchi. But, Dr Jagannath Mishra got him out of Kanke as he had to get some other person admitted there, in the VIP ward. He did go to Merutt hospital and after that he ran away. He suffers from Schizonfrania. He has been treated by NIMHANS Bangalore also but not much details are available. His family did not have enough money to support his treatment and Bihar Govt threw him out of Kanke which made his condition worst. It appears that he fled from Merut Mental Hospital and was untraceable for many years until someone from his village saw him as a ragpicker in Chapra in mid 90s and informed his family.

His elder brother and others went to cross check the facts and went to see him. They were happy to see him alive but were sad to see his misery. He was brought back to his village in late 80s or early 1990s. There was a crowd of political bigshots and I think, Laloo was also one of
the leaders to have gone and met him.

He suffers from Schizonfrania. He has been treated by NIMHANS Bangalore also but not much details are available. His family did not have enough money to support his treatment and Bihar Govt threw him out of Kanke which made his condition worst.

Lets us try understand the situation of Dr. Vasistha Narayan Singh. He has been suffering with schizophrenia. To understand this disease and to understand cure of this disease, you must watch the film "Beautiful Mind". Dr. John Nash presently a professor at Princeton Unieversity had the same disease.

Medicational help is not much of help in this diesease. He need a proper environment to come back to normal life. Age is also a factor in recovery. A proper nutrition and life long medication can re-vitalize his life. But he needs a research related assignment and academic environment to be normal; besides having a loving family. Mentally, he is still living in the age of 20-30, though he may be 60 + as of today.

Even he was not in limelight since a long time. We got attention by a News in Dainik Jagran of his felicitation of Bank of India Employees Association(ARA).

For details of his current situation visit this Link.
http://www.bhojpuria.com/people/vnsingh1.htm

Note :- Informations provided in this mail are taken from several sources. main source is my mails in BIHARI Yahoo Group.

Thanks to Saroj Ji(http://us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=sarojbihar@yahoo.co.in), Kundan ji(http://us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=kundan_civil2000@yahoo.com), Mr. Kartik Sahay USA(http://us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=ktk@usa.com) and Bihari group(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bihari).

And special thanks to Sudhir ji (http://www.bhojpuria.com/) for his excellent initiative towards this work.