From a single face-to-face meeting six years ago, he instantly recalled who I was when I phoned him. He was then a gawky, introvert 15-year-old, India’s youngest Ph.D. candidate, and had just enrolled at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc). I was interviewing him for a story on child prodigies for Time magazine.

He remembered the exact date we met six years ago. He reeled off my personal email address. It was almost eerie. I told him I would hate to be his enemy. He laughed and declared modestly that he made no effort to remember but did not forget easily.

Tathagat Avatar Tulsi, once hailed as a child prodigy, is now 21. What happens to child prodigies? Most of them burn out and wither away under the media glare. Others’ achievements as grown-ups overshadow their childhood promise.

Last week, the Patna-born Tulsi was conferred a Ph.D in physics by IISc. That makes him the youngest Indian Ph.D and part of a select global group of mathematicians and physicists who got their Ph.Ds at such a young age, such as John Forbes Nash Jr., the MIT mathematician, whose life story was turned into the Hollywood film A Beautiful Mind, and who got his Ph.D in mathematics when he was 21.

Tulsi’s Ph.D. research was titled ‘Generalisations of the Quantum Search Algorithms.’ The thesis is a mere 33 pages. Quantum search algorithm is software for powerful, superfast, future computing called quantum computing. Present-day computers are classical computers. The fastest computer today is a car compared with the promise of quantum computers which can be likened to jet airplanes.

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