Vashishtha Narayan Singh dies: A mathematician who ignited minds

PATNA: Born on April 2, 1942 at Basantpur village in Bhojpur district to Lal Bahadur Singh (a constable) and Lahaso Devi (housewife), Vashishtha Narayan Singh was a bright student. He passed his higher secondary examination from the prestigious Netarhat School in 1961, securing first rank in the state. He was admitted to Patna Science College the same year in BSc Part I class and opted for honours in mathematics, the subject he loved most.
It was in this college where Vashishtha’s genius was spotted by his classmates and teachers.During his classes, he used to ask so many questions to teachers who would invariably become irritated. The then principal of Patna Science College, N S Nagendra Nath, was so impressed with Vashishtha that he met the then Patna University vice-chancellor George Jacob and requested him to let the boy appear for the BSc final year honours examination even before clearing the Part I examination.
PU examination rules were amended to make this special student appear at the final examination. And, even in this examination, he topped. It may be mentioned here that much later, child prodigy Tathagat Awatar Tulsi, also a student of this very college, was too granted permission to take the final BSc examination just in one year, citing the precedence of Vashishtha.
PU former vice-chancellor and renowned scholar of physics Jagannath Thakur, who was two years senior to Vashishtha and lived in the same Faraday Hostel, said the student was really a genius. He was a pure mathematician who seldom mixed with other students. “He used to remain confined in his room, solving the mathematical problems. Once, I asked him a tricky mathematical problem which he solved immediately,” Thakur said.
When Vashishtha was a student, an international conference was held here in which John L Kelley from California University had also come. Nath introduced Vashishtha to Kelley who, too, got very much impressed with the student and invited him to California University for research. He went to the USA on scholarship and completed his PhD from California University in 1969. He returned to India and served some prestigious institutions like IIT-Kanpur, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research-Mumbai and Indian Statistical Institute-Kolkata for some time.
Vashishtha was married to a daughter of an Army officer, but the marriage did not last long and he was divorced soon. He was soon diagnosed with schizophrenia. The reported mismatch in his married life and some sort of disappointment in his professional career caused mental imbalance in the genius, said PU retired professor of physics and former state higher education director Nageshwar Prasad Sharma.
He was admitted to the Central Institute of Psychiatry in Ranchi from where he was released in 1985. Then he went missing for several years. In February 1993, he was found picking rags near a roadside dhaba at Doriganj in Chapra. He was brought to his native place and his plight was highlighted in the national media. The then Union HRD minister Arjun Singh arranged for his treatment at NIMHANS, Bangalore. But he could not stay there for long and discharged from the hospital.
PU physics department teacher Shankar Kumar said Vashishtha was quite in senses in 2010 when he was felicitated at Patna Science College. Later, he again fell ill and remained confined in his native home. He was brought to PMCH a few days back when his condition deteriorated considerably. “Had Vashishtha been in some developed country, the world would have taken great advantage from his genius,” said Kumar.