Tathagat Avatar Tulsi is a renowned physicist who was a child prodigybut is now jobless.

He was born in Bihar on September 9, 1987. Tulsi graduated from high school at the age of nine, received a BSc from Patna Science College when he was eleven, and finished an MSc there at the age of twelve. Tathaghat Avatar Tulsi attended the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore after earning his MSc, where he went on to earn his PhD in 2009 at the age of 21.

He got an invitation to work as an Assistant Professor on contract from IIT-Mumbai in July 2010. It was a non-permanent teaching job for recent PhD graduates. Tulsi, however, was fired from his position in 2019. According to him, the institute made the decision to fire him after he took a lengthy leave of absence owing to sickness.

In 2011, he experienced  high fever. He was diagnosed with an allergy. Despite the fact that it continued for two more years, he finally departed Mumbai in 2013 after taking a four-year leave from IIT Bombay. He has been in Patna ever since. He did not go back to Mumbai due to the allergy. Finally, he was fired from his position in July 2019. Tathagat’s application was turned down by then-President Ramnath Kovind in August 2021.

Tulsi is currently jobless and residing with his brother in Patna. Tathagat stated in a BBC interview that he intended to knock at the doors of the Delhi High Court. For this, he is himself studying law. He should be transferred to another IIT is what he wants.

Tulsi was described as a “good boy, very lovable, and working to achieve his goals” by the then-physics department dean when he applied to IISC at the age of 17 for a PhD programme. Tulsi made headlines in 2001 after being selected by the Indian government to attend a gathering of Nobel laureates in Germany.

“Generalizations of the Quantum Search Algorithm” was the topic of Tulsi’s PhD thesis. He and Lov Grover co-authored a research manuscript titled “A New Algorithm for Fixed-point Quantum Search” that was never published.

TIME magazine previously referred to Tulsi as one of the most talented Asian children. He received the nicknames “Superteen” by Science, “Physics Prodigy” by The TIMES, and “Master Mind” by The WEEK. On December 13th, 2007, the National Geographic Channel aired Tulsi’s tale as part of the program My Brilliant Brain.