Prodigy Tathaghat Avatar Tulsi, the IIT-B Professor and Quantum Search Algorithm paper publisher , now finds finds life a bit dull

Tathaghat Avatar Tulsi was a child prodigy at 6. Now a professor at IIT Bombay

Tathaghat was featured on Nat Geo Channel in show INDIA’S CHILD PRODIGIES. At six, the boy from Bihar was classified by the media as a mathematical prodigy. At 14, he was branded a fraud. In between, he completed schooling at nine, got a BSC degree at 10, an MSc at 12 and a PhD at 22.

Since 2010, Tulsi has been researching Theoretical Quantum Computing to build new algorithms that will help create super computers to solve complex problems.

At 26, he finds it hard to verbalise the meaning and importance of concepts like friendship. "To have deep friendships, you have to devote a lot of time, and then what? It has no utility," says the professor of Physics at IIT Bombay.

Utility is a measure for much of his life, even fame. "I liked the fame I received as a child. I still like fame, and want it. When you have it, you can make money," he says.

And Tulsi knows a few things about glory. In 2001, the Department of Science and Technology admitted to having made a blunder by sending Tulsi to Germany the previous year for an interaction with physics Nobel laureates, embarrassing the contin gent with his scant knowledge.

Labelled a fake, Tulsi battled depression for four years between 14 and 18, while working on a PhD in IISc at Bangalore. "Of course, back then I didn't know it was depression.

I only found out it is a disease when I studied psychology. It's not that I was sad all the time. I'd define it as zero efficiency. I was angry at the world, a little angry at my father who had exposed me to it all," he says. He was receiving a monthly government grant of Rs 8000, a lot of money for a teenager.

The plan was to start studying at 20 and appear for the IAS exams at 21 to improve his (socioeconomic) situation. "For my family, that was the utility of education -to improve life. Till then, I decided to enjoy every day.

In Bangalore, for the first time, I made friends and developed a sense of humour. I'd go watch a movie every Friday; some of them were very mediocre. These taught me what science couldn't. You see, everything in math happens for a reason. And Hindi movies are random. There is no pattern."

Here he stops to laugh and there's a glimpse of the child he must have been before he started arranging the world into a pattern of action and utility.

"Also, in Hindi movies, the hero is always wronged," he continues.

"The world is against him and he rises and fights. I felt this is what I should do." Well done, mediocre cinema! Around this time, Tulsi was invited by professor Love Grover, the inventor of a quantum search algorithm, to assist him in his research in America. "America opened my mind," says Tulsi.

 "Slowly, I stopped looking at myself through the eyes of others. When the world said I was a prodigy, I felt like one; when the world said I was a fraud, I felt like one. Now I realised that I was happy when I was learning. That's where my true happiness lay."

It's this happiness he keeps going back to periodically. He has just returned from a four month break he took to spend time with family in Patna.

"I've started learning music -Hindustani classical vocal and the guitar," he says. "I took two lessons during which the teacher played the harmonium and I repeated Sa-re-ga-ma, but it made me happy." Music, says Tulsi, he didn't pursue in childhood because the family couldn't afford "pursuits with no utility".

"Now I can set aside Rs 7000 to buy a guitar," he says. Saturated with his research, he has decided to give it a break for a couple of years, and instead study biology, chemistry and finance. "Research can be monotonous, but teaching gives me confidence. My class feedback has just come in, and students have called me friendly, so I must be."

As is the script, Tulsi's parents have started looking for a girl for him to marry. He isn't averse to the idea. "I want a constant companion," he says. "I will invest time for her (as he does not for friends) because this will be permanent. I want someone who'll compliment me -she should not be good in math, but in arts -singing, music, painting. This will be good for the children too."

The question looms that if his children turn out to be special like him, will he expose them to the world in the same way. "I will guide them for sure, like my father did," he says. "But I won't expose them to the media. Instead, I'll seek out a private institution where their talents can grow."

His father Tulsi Narayan Prasad was the one to spot the wonder boy's talent. The deeply religious lawyer from Gaya had accredited the genius of his son to eugenics. "My father believes that through Ayurvedic applications during my mother's pregnancy, it was possible to manifest a child of desired gender and aptitude.

He believes that if you have 10 chakras in your fingerprints (one on each finger), it's a sign of something special. He and both my elder brothers have nine chakras each. I was born with the perfect 10. Only Buddha and (Emperor) Ashoka had 10. That's what made him think I am special, and call me Tathaghat Avatar."

Tathaghat is the Pali word Buddha used for himself.

It's a bit incongruous that a man of mathematics would have his genesis in superstition. "It's my father's belief, and I always urge him to present it scientifically," he says.

"Sometimes, things seem like superstition because we can't see the science behind them, like Ayurvedic prescriptions. But he wasn't obsessed with having a male child as was reported by the media."

Prasad knew of another mathematical genius, Shakuntala Devi. "He had read that her father used to take her to circuses and fairs to make her perform calculations," says Tulsi and adds laughing. "So, my father took me to our own circus -the media.

First, he accompanied me to renowned professors and IAS officers, who tested me using a calculator and then wrote out letters saying my talent was authentic." With these, says Tulsi, his father approached editors, who called in journalists and tested him again. "That is the beauty of my talent, anyone can test me using a calculator, on the spot. Then the word spread and I was on the front page of every paper. Newspapers were like books to us. My name was printed where it would be for generations. Everyone knew me. I felt very special."

Tulsi's upbringing has cemented a deferential attitude to authority. Invisible, it hangs over him at all times. Perhaps his karmic practise now is not to see himself through its eyes. He might seem insolent in speech, but in person, he is emotionally gawky. Here was a six-year-old who pulled out of school when the backbenchers started murmuring, "Isska sar phod ke dekhte hai andar kya hai." "Some children were jealous and I was afraid because they were bigger than me. I was an introvert."

The way forward, apart from finding a genetically complementary life partner is to hone his English. "I am reading books in English and watching English movies to better it. I want to be able to express my sense of humour in English. That's important in public speaking. If you make the audience laugh, you have made an impact."