Pulitzer Pride

“Every year,I tell my students that my former student Siddhartha Mukherjee will win big laurels. Today,I feel proud,” says Sarabjeet Sachdev,55,chemistry teacher at St Columba’s in Delhi. As news trickled in that Mukherjee had won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for his first book,The Emperor of All Maladies: A history of Cancer,an intimately narrated story of how the cancer cells live,colonise,destroy,then tire out,Sachdev recalled the “extraordinarily bright student” whom she had taught chemistry in Classes XI and XII.

“I used to work extra hard on my chemistry lectures because I knew Siddhartha would ask a lot of questions,” says Sachdev. “He was also the first student to make a power point presentation (PPT) at an inter-school science symposium in our school. He won the first prize and even taught me to make PPTs.”

Mukherjee’s prize will be announced at his old school today — an honour reserved for special feats by the alumnus. A cancer specialist,Mukherjee,now 41,was born in Delhi and attended St Columba’s. A Rhodes Scholar,he subsequently majored in biology from Stanford University in the US and wrote his PhD in immunology from Oxford University.

He wasn’t bit only by the science bug,says Dorothy LaPersonne,60,a social studies teacher at the school. “He was part of a Discovery India Project and I still remember the beautiful mural of a village that he made. He was interested in art and a good debater,” she says. Everyone is convinced.