In Bihar everyone
knows Basantpur as the village of Dr.Vasista Naryan Singh and if fate had not struck him
down he would have been a well known celebrity in India and abroad. Born on
April 2nd 1942, Vasista
Naryan Singh was the son of late Lal Bahadur Singh and Lahaso devi in Basantpur village, Bhojpur, Bihar. It
was a poor family eking out living with the income of Lal Bahadur who was a
police man.
Dr.Narayan’s primary education was in a nearby village
school. He passed his matriculation exam in 1962. He was State first in that
exam and got admission in prestigious Patna Science College. During that time a
great American scholar Prof.kelly visited the science college for world
mathematical conference. The principal of the college knowing the exceptional
talents of Vasistha arranged an interview with Prof. Kelly. The professor asked
a number of questions on mathematical problems including very difficult ones
for his age and he answered them all correctly. Seeing his extra ordinary
talent Kelly decided to take him to U S A.
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Thus he went to California as research scholar in 1963 at
the age of twenty one, a very rare achievement for a Young man hailing from a
poor family in a backward District of Bihar.
After his research on
a science project he came back to India. It was a brief stay and he went again
to States. He was in research during
1963 to 1969 and during the period got MSc and Phd in mathematics subsequently
getting appointment in NASA where he worked until 1972.
In 1972 he returned to India. During the period his parents
were pressing him to come to India and settle down . V N Singh himself felt an
urge to serve India in whatever way he could. It was time of drug and hippy
culture in U S . It seems Dr. V N Singh
too fell prey to the drug culture though in a limited way.
After he got back to India he worked in such prestigious
institutes like I I T Kanpur and Tata Institute of fundamental research until
1977. In 1977 he started showing symptoms of mental disease and never recovered
from it fully to this day.
No one knows what triggered the mental disease, schizophrenia,
in him. He got married after coming from States from a well-to-do family but
ended in divorce soon. It had some depressing impact on him. The suspected drug
abuse, his disillusionment with service to the nation, failed marriage and the
inferior working conditions here compared to U S all have a share for precipitating the disease.
He is still under treatment and lives in his native village
with his brother. The Government help comes in occasionally. Like all mentally unstable persons he lives in
his own world.
A waste of a great
genius, a great son of India.
Courtsey : Bhojpuriya.com
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