Mathemagician...

Meet Anand Kumar...

30 something ( Born 1 Jan, 1973)

Mathematics Lover.

Educationist- Innovator.

Teaches FREE... and provides food, lodging and reading resources also free to students he personally picks and feels that they need his help.

What drives this young man? It is not just his love of the subject of Mathematics but also a life changing moment in a politician's office that made him what he is today.

Sometimes it can be a bigger blessing NOT to be granted your heart's desire! He was derisively told by a political aide that he should concentrate on his studies rather than run after politicians to fund his studies.

He had already started the Ramanujan School of MAthematics when still in college as a Mathematics Club. Even then, it was a free programme for Mathematics lovers. His natural flair and passion meant an ongoing contribution to various national and international publications. The crowning glory came with the offer to Cambridge University. That needed money. And Anand did not have enough, and had to give up that dream.

He suffered enough hardship and enough poverty to feel the need to shake it to its very roots and do something no one else had done before. He founded the new Ramanujan School of mathematics with the help of Abhyanand, an IPS officer who was himself a scholar- in Physics. In the backyard of the country, among the people who had dreams but no means to fulfill them, he decided to change things.

For the last three years, consecutively, Super 30 has managed a 100% IIT admission rate- for free!

This man teaches thrice a week, more than 2 hours each session, and the listeners are about 5000 students who latch on to every word he speaks into the microphone clipped to his T-Shirt. And outside the shed that houses the school, are lined uncountable bicycles!

As is usual in Bihar, success can mean threat... and he, too has received enough threatening calls. So now he also has body guards...

Anand has come a long way from selling Anand papad made by his mother on his bicycle to being judged the Phenomenon of the year! In less than a decade, he has created a legend and helped so many more students who could not afford anything on their own.

Where does he get the money to do what he does? He teaches. That generates the hard funds needed. His mother cooks for the students. These students have only one objective- they have to study. 14-16 hours a day! They do. At the end of the year, the reward more than makes up for the penance they go through- quite like olden days! Shiva always answers!

Now, this young entrepreneur does not need funds from the government or even from philanthropists to sustain his venture. He can go anywhere in the world- US or UK are no longer distant dreams.

His advice to youth?

Start your own venture with whatever you have. Do not borrow. Do what you love. And the world will change around you!

If a few more Anands could do this- start with whatever they have, and do what they love doing- India will also change. And She will change in the areas as yet untouched by modernity, technology and the rest of the world will watch. Awestruck.

When I saw Swades a few years ago, I cried. I wanted to do something that could make a difference.

Today I read and communicate with Anand- and I rejoice. It is not just in stories and movies. Things have begun happening to people around me.

ANAND BHARAT VIJAYETE TARAM!

आनंद भारत विजयेते तरम!