How a village star hit NASA radar

How a village star hit NASA radar

Behind 15-year-old topper’s success, his parents and an amazing rural school

ALKA PANDE

NARHI NAGRA (BALLIA) FEBRUARY 19 In an unremarkable 450-square foot half-constructed home, where smoke from the chulha has blackened the walls, sits a 15-year-old, awash with regret. Saurabh Singh is now officially one of the brightest schoolboy scientists in the world. NASA results don’t lie and Saurabh, a diffident boy from eastern Uttar Pradesh has become the first Indian to top its International Scientist Discovery Examination for 2005-06. It is the same examination in which President A P J Abdul Kalam, as a young boy, finished seventh and later Kalpana Chawla finished 21st. But Saurabh is still upset that he missed out on a world record. His result speaks for itself: Aeronautics (A++); Physical Chemistry (A++); Organic Chemistry (A++); Magnetism (A++). Then the horror. He scored a mere A+ for Electronics and he is furious with himself. “I didn’t monitor the time properly and got nervous and made a mistake in the last one,” he says. It seems almost surreal to watch this boy from a lower middle-class family—his father Ramkeshwar is an assistant teacher at Naherji Inter College—sitting in a 10x10 feet room, lighted only by a 40 watt bulb, speaking so nonchalantly of how he conquered science. It is a compelling tale that must, of course, begin with a brilliant boy, just five feet four inches tall, who is still working out Physics formulae under the dim bulb and who thought nothing of studying 16 to 18 hours a day for months. But the story is incomplete without his father Ramkeshwar, who thought nothing of forking out Rs 46,000 to ensure him sophisticated coaching, or his mother Nirmala Devi, an auxiliary nurse and midwife who has worked away from home, in Fatehpur, for years so the family could make ends meet. And it cannot ignore a certain Reena Singh who started Gyan Peethika Senior Secondary School on the suburbs of Ballia in 1993. It was this school, 40 km from his home, that he attended for his Classes IX and X, staying in a hostel and learning to dream. Reena has made it her life’s mission to make sure she offers village children the facilities that can make their dreams come true. With the help of her two US-based daughters, she has set up a school complete with a multimedia lab and 25 computers. The place is even fitted with CCTV cameras. The school, which offers Science, Commerce and Information Technology has also applied to start courses in Biotechnology and Fashion Designing. It even has a separate wing for competitive examinations where Saurabh first honed his skills. “We used to read about great people and he said that one day we would read his name too,” said his hostel room-mate Pankaj Singh. Reena made sure that she sharpened Saurabh’s English language skills. “The children here are oozing with talent and just require some motivation,” she said. No wonder that when NASA chief Sean O’Keefe asked Saurabh a question on English grammar, he gave the right answer — even though he replied in Hindi. “The NASA chief applauded,” says Saurabh. The boy certainly keeps good company. After his stint at Gyan Peethika, he was packed off to Kota for coaching in Science and Mathematics. There again, he says he was fortunate to run into Umesh Singh, a Physics teacher so devoted he would actually stay up all night with his students as they prepared. Now the results are out and Saurabh is already a celebrity in his own right — again, no coincidence as Reena’s daughters were on their laptops within minutes of the news, sending out the news to the media and VIPs. Each member of the UP Legislative Council has promised to donate a day’s salary to help Saurabh. His own idol, President Kalam, has expressed a desire to meet him. And Gyan Peethika school has announced a Saurabh Singh scholarship worth Rs 40,000. When he spends next year at Pennsylvania, he will know that back home he himself has become a role model.

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