‘In school,he would have had to unlearn everything’

Sahal never went to school before he was admitted to Class IX in a CBSE school.

But by the age of 14,he had cleared his Class XII exams. It helped that his mother chose to leave her job as a doctor to look after the children.

She had noticed that Sahal was special,for as a two-year-old he had started spelling out long words. She soon decided that her son needed special attention and became a full-time companion and teacher to him. “He already knew more than children his age. Getting him admitted in school would have meant unlearning whatever he knew,” she says.

“I never look at it like a sacrifice. He is my son and I knew I could make him better than me,” says Ruchi as she slips in and out of her son’s room to attend to the unending flow of visitors. Sahal’s father Colonel Tapeshvar Kumar Kaushik is posted in Assam.

Daughter of an engineer,Ruchi spent most of her childhood in the UAE and returned to India for studies after Class XII. In 1983,she secured a seat at the Gorakhpur Medical College in Uttar Pradesh,her father’s native state. “I was never career oriented and so leaving it for my son was not difficult,” she says.

Since his childhood,Sahal was interested in Physics and Mathematics and could solve complicated problems in his mind. But despite his 33rd rank,Sahal says he is not interested in becoming an engineer. “I will study Physics in IIT,” adds the boy,who likes songs and movies of Kishore Kumar and chatting online.

Ruchi doesn’t think studying at IIT will be a problem for her son. “Last year,he went to attend the Asian Physics Olympiad and managed to make friends with people much older than him. The organisers took away their mobile phones and for eight days we had no communication,but Sahal was fine. The advantage with bright children is that they know how to adapt to the changes around them.”