(Year 1940 to 14 November
2019)
Sir Vashishtha Narayan Singh
We are guilty
of neglecting this genius.
It deeply saddens that the
mathematician who challenged Einstein's theory of
relativity and could have been in the league of Sir. Srinivasa Ramanujan; died unknown in the web of poverty, suffering
from schizophrenia.
His soul is
supposed to get some consolation, as he was not the only masterpiece we did not
preserve. We as a nation, on one hand hold the distinction of leaving budding
talents to fend for themselves during the period of their struggle and on
another hand fail to treasure shining stars once they start fading away from
the center stage due to cruelty of life.
We would not
leave any photo opportunity with proven few, award them with cash, job, land
and what not, make money by making movies on them, offer them tickets to
contest elections but, would not have provided them even basic resources when
they needed the most, that is during their formative years of grind, as many of
them would come from poor economic background.
Sir
Vashishtha Narayan Singh a child prodigy received recognition as
a student when he was allowed by Patna University to appear for examination in the first year of it’s
two year BSc (Hons.) Mathematics course; and was allowed to appear for MSc examination the next year.
He joined University of California, Berkeley in
1965 and received PhD in ‘Reproducing
Kernels and Operators with a Cyclic Vector (Cycle Vector Space Theory)’ in 1969 under doctoral advisor was John L. Kelley.
After receiving his PhD, he joined
the Washington University as an associate
professor. He later worked at NASA and then returned to India in 1974. He taught at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR)
and Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. With worsening condition in late 1970s, he was
admitted to the Central Institute of Psychiatry in Kanke,
Jharkhand and left from there in 1985. He was lost during his
train journey to Pune in 1989 and was apparently found begging four years
later in 1993 in Doriganj near Chhapra of Saran district. He was then admitted to the National
Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore. In 2002, he was treated at the institute of Human Behavior
and Allied Sciences (IHBAS), Delhi.
In 2014, he was appointed as a visiting
professor at the Bhupendra
Narayan Mandal University (BNMU) in Madhepura.
It is also said that at the time of launch of 'Apollo', all
the devices stopped, the computer malfunctioned for 30 to 35 seconds. During that time Sir
Vashishtha Narayan Singh started calculating data manually. When the computer got fixed, his mathematical
calculations and computer’s calculations were exactly the same!
He died on 14 November 2019 at Patna Medical College Hospital after prolonged illness where family
members of the country's prominent mathematician Sir. Vashishtha Narayan Singh were
forced to wait for an ambulance outside Patna Medical College and Hospital
(PMCH), with his body on a stretcher for two hours!
Apathy of successive governments, who
do not have any written down policy and program to cultivate, develop and honor
talents on an on-going basis, has been the primary reason for brain drain from
this nation.
There are enough sparks around but, need of the hour is to institutionalize system
to cull out diamonds from different field and turn them into masterpieces, by
providing them encouragement, support and eco-system.
I
offer my homage to great mathematician of his time
Sir. Vashistha Naryan Singh.
May
your soul rest in peace in heaven and forgives us for ignoring the genius in
you.
With
Tears
Ajit
Singh
