Sweet taste of success: Sumeru Nayak with his parents on Tuesday. Telegraph picture

Durgapur/Burdwan, May 20: Sixteen-year-old Sumeru Nayak is hooked to Formula One, not the staple fare of cricket.

The Bengal topper in ICSE 2008 regrets that Michael Schumacher has retired, though he feels Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton aren’t any inferior.

For a Schumi fan, it is but natural that even T20 cricket would appear a touch too slow.

“I love to watch cars racing. Cricket does not attract me at all and I’m not interested in the IPL,” says the boy, sitting at home in Burdwan town.

The St Xavier’s, Burdwan, student wants to be a software engineer. He also hums Himesh Reshammiya — Aashiq banaya — under his breath and likes Sonu Nigam’s songs.

“Himesh and Sonu are my favourites. I listen to Hindi songs on FM, on my mobile and on CDs. Music helped me a lot to control stress during the preparation for my exams,” he says.

Sumeru knew he had done well in the exams. “But I never imagined that I would top the state.”

For his board exams, Sumeru took lessons from four private tutors in science and mathematics. For subjects like history, civics, geography, English and Bengali, he depended on his mother. “I studied for five to six hours a day and made it a point not to over-burden myself,” he says.

His mother Moushumi, a science graduate, says the parents never pressured the teenager. “We never forced him to study against his wishes, nor did we ever set targets for him.”

Sumeru’s father Goutam, an LIC officer, was jubilant. “The entire credit for my son’s results goes to my wife. It was she who monitored his studies since childhood. We are both overjoyed with his results,” he says.

Apart from car racing, Sumeru loves reading. Ruskin Bond and Arthur Conan Doyle top his list. “Between Class III and IV, I also tried my hand at writing poems and stories,” he said. Some of them have appeared in the Telekids section of The Telegraph, he added.

Sumeru’s teachers are also happy at his success. “He was a very good student from the beginning and stood first in all school exams. We are very happy,” said Father Peter, the assistant headmaster of St Xavier’s, Burdwan.