Dear friends,
I am forwarding a write-up on Dr. Vashistha Narayan Singh which was
circulated in NOBA (Netarhat Old Boys Association) yahoo group.
Thanks,
Arvind

From: Shankar Kumar <cool_friend0@...>
Dear NOBA Members,

Although I am not from Netarhat, but I am sending you this mail, because I
think that you will be interested to know about the current situation of one
of the greatest students of Netarhat.

This is a mail with a difference and with a request to all of you. Request
to give some time to read this mail 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.

http://www.bhojpuria.com/people/vnsingh1.htm

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 - 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 1960s 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 in 1963/ 64/ 65/
66 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 Ph D 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&MATH\
ALUM_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(family problems were the cause) to never come
back 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 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.

He was untraceable for many years when he fled away from during Journey to
Banglore for treatment, 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. Bihar govt had promised to send him to NIMHANS, Bangalore
and I think that they did send him. I do not know whether any support was
offered after the media stopped following the story.

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(sarojbihar@...), Kundan
ji(kundan_civil2000@...), Mr. Kartik Sahay USA(ktk@...) and Bihari
group(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bihari).

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

With Thanks & Regards
Shankar Kumar
Nuurrie Media Limited
442, The Ashoka, Chanakyapuri
New Delhi-110021
Ph. No. 011-24101995
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