Anand Kumar: Tale Of A Living Legend

Anand Kumar better known for his Super 30 programme was born on 1 January 1973 in Patna, Bihar. His love towards mathematics was visible in his zeal for learning since childhood and that culminated in the formation of a study group for underprivileged “Super 30”.

Early life

Born into a lower middle family, Anand Kumar could attend only a Hindi medium government school and get average education. His father being a clerk in the postal department wasn’t able to send his genius child to a private school for better education but nothing stopped Anand Kumar from attaining the best education.

Results

Anand Kumar’s work on number theory was featured in the Mathematical Spectrum and The Mathematical Gazette during graduation. He even secured admission to Cambridge University and received grants from benevolent donors but couldn’t attend the foreign university due to his father’s death and the resulting financial constraints.

His love for mathematics kept him going to places in search for education. He tutored students to earn extra bucks and sell papada with his mother to help her in meeting the finances. For education, he travelled to Varanasi that is 6-hours journey from Patna to find foreign journals not available in Patna university.

Teaching career

In 1992, Anand Kumar started his tuition centre from a rented room. He named his institute the Ramanujan School of Mathematics (RSM). Soon he became popular and start getting a large number of students in his coaching centre.

Super 30

In 2002, Anand Kumar came up with the idea of teaching 30 underprivileged students for IIT-JEE. He prepared a test paper to select students and started giving tuition to selected students. … Read the rest