Programmed to Be A Genius
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'I Was Programmed to Be A Genius'
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MUMBAI: Tathagat Avatar Tulsi's parents merely smiled when their son was named among the world's seven most gifted youngsters in 2003; they had, after all, planned for it well before he was born. Indeed, in the realms of sci-fi, he would be known as a programmed child.
Prof Tulsi Narayan Prasad, an advocate at the Supreme Court and a serious practitioner of astro-genetics, had to fight the world around him when he proposed that the sex of a to-be-born child could be manipulated. He proved his theory right by declaring well in advance that he was going to have a male child.
"The sceptics brushed it off as an act of nature. I decided to have another male child. And, when that too happened, people stopped making snide remarks. Somewhere around that time I thought of producing a genius child," he told TOI with a smile on the day 22-year-old Tathagat passed through the portals of IIT as its youngest faculty. Tathagat, according to a dictionary on Hindu names, means a child who has a quick mind with the ability to accomplish a great deal in a short period of time. He has clearly already achieved that and a lot more.
"It's a science called eugenics," Tulsi Prasad said, explaining the way his genius child was conceived. "By employing it, we can ensure that the child achieves the desired traits. As I knew what we wanted, we followed the prescription for a genius mind. Human body is a perfect institution. Nature has made it self-sufficient. For organised production of required chemicals, there are glands which could be (altered)..."
He explained: "I and my wife had to plan everything in the process of having the child, right from our diet to our mood to the sex itself."
Tathagat showed no sign of anxiety as he met some of his students at the Powai institution on Monday. "They were all very excited to meet me. They clicked pictures and I felt very much at ease. Let's see how the actual teaching goes, though," he added.
But Tathagat, dressed in a light green shirt and dark trousers, hardly looked like a professor. He smiled and laughed like a teenager when asked about girlfriends but his face turned intense the moment the questions veered towards science.
Hailed as a child prodigy, he finished high school when he was just nine, B.Sc by the time he was 10 and M.Sc before he turned 12. "It wasn't surprising at all as my parents had told me that I was programmed before birth to be genius. I knew I was different when I discovered that I was more fascinated by physics while the others my age were into sports and games," he said.
Initially, however, it was a trifle disturbing, he admitted on Monday. "But I soon learnt to cope with it. I hung out with people with whom I could talk about quantum physics. But now I have learnt the art of pretending to be ‘normal'," he added.
"I finished reading A Brief History of Time (by Stephen Hawking) when I was six. I loved it even though I didn't understand everything there," he said, giving glimpses of what it was like to grow up as a programmed child.
And who was his role model? Albert Einstein, he said, without a blink. "My dream is to win a Nobel," he added. "I would like to develop quantum software to solve problems that cannot be cracked by classical computers," he said.
Tathagat may be sure of why his past has been like it was but would not like to stare too much into the future. "Fifty years is too far away to think about and plan for. But I do know what I want in the next five years," he laughed.
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'I Was Programmed to Be A Genius'
.jpg)
MUMBAI: Tathagat Avatar Tulsi's parents merely smiled when their son was named among the world's seven most gifted youngsters in 2003; they had, after all, planned for it well before he was born. Indeed, in the realms of sci-fi, he would be known as a programmed child. Prof Tulsi Narayan Prasad, an advocate at the Supreme Court and a serious practitioner of astro-genetics, had to fight the world around him when he proposed that the sex of a to-be-born child could be manipulated. He proved his theory right by declaring well in advance that he was going to have a male child.
"The sceptics brushed it off as an act of nature. I decided to have another male child. And, when that too happened, people stopped making snide remarks. Somewhere around that time I thought of producing a genius child," he told TOI with a smile on the day 22-year-old Tathagat passed through the portals of IIT as its youngest faculty. Tathagat, according to a dictionary on Hindu names, means a child who has a quick mind with the ability to accomplish a great deal in a short period of time. He has clearly already achieved that and a lot more.
"It's a science called eugenics," Tulsi Prasad said, explaining the way his genius child was conceived. "By employing it, we can ensure that the child achieves the desired traits. As I knew what we wanted, we followed the prescription for a genius mind. Human body is a perfect institution. Nature has made it self-sufficient. For organised production of required chemicals, there are glands which could be (altered)..."
He explained: "I and my wife had to plan everything in the process of having the child, right from our diet to our mood to the sex itself."
Tathagat showed no sign of anxiety as he met some of his students at the Powai institution on Monday. "They were all very excited to meet me. They clicked pictures and I felt very much at ease. Let's see how the actual teaching goes, though," he added.
But Tathagat, dressed in a light green shirt and dark trousers, hardly looked like a professor. He smiled and laughed like a teenager when asked about girlfriends but his face turned intense the moment the questions veered towards science.
Hailed as a child prodigy, he finished high school when he was just nine, B.Sc by the time he was 10 and M.Sc before he turned 12. "It wasn't surprising at all as my parents had told me that I was programmed before birth to be genius. I knew I was different when I discovered that I was more fascinated by physics while the others my age were into sports and games," he said.
Initially, however, it was a trifle disturbing, he admitted on Monday. "But I soon learnt to cope with it. I hung out with people with whom I could talk about quantum physics. But now I have learnt the art of pretending to be ‘normal'," he added.
"I finished reading A Brief History of Time (by Stephen Hawking) when I was six. I loved it even though I didn't understand everything there," he said, giving glimpses of what it was like to grow up as a programmed child.
And who was his role model? Albert Einstein, he said, without a blink. "My dream is to win a Nobel," he added. "I would like to develop quantum software to solve problems that cannot be cracked by classical computers," he said.
Tathagat may be sure of why his past has been like it was but would not like to stare too much into the future. "Fifty years is too far away to think about and plan for. But I do know what I want in the next five years," he laughed.
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