Shubham Prakhar

Patna, Nov. 16: The 12-year-old ?India?s Child Genius? insists that he likes mathematics and science more than any other subject that the Class VIII student is taught at DAV Public School in Muzaffarpur.

That is all right for the only son of a couple who hold degrees in engineering because Shubham Prakhar wants to join one of the IITs after school.

But the other insistence of the child genius, who was adjudged so by a no-nonsense Siddhartha Basu on the Star World programme whose finals were telecast on Sunday, is surprising. ?I like Bihar and I like Muzaffarpur very much. After Prabhat Tara, DAV is the best school in the world. I would have continued in Prabhat Tara but that school admits boys only up to Class V,? Shubham told The Telegraph.

The fact that he hails from Bihar, a much-maligned state, does not perturb him. ?No place is bad. Bihar has excellent and very bright people,? said Shubham,

The bubbly bespectacled Shubham wants to become an engineer because he is determined to ?serve the society? with the specialised knowledge he would subsequently acquire.

?I have always wanted to be an engineer because my father and mummy are engineers too. There is so much knowledge to be acquired and I have been told that there is no place better than an IIT in the country,? he said.

Being computer-savvy helped Shubham enter the race for being declared the child genius. ?I learned about the contest through the Star World promos and on a website from where I downloaded the application form. Only those with marks above 80 per cent could apply and they received 16,000 applications. Then 5,000 students were shortlisted before the real test began,? Shubham said.

?I topped the preliminary and the east zone round but I came second in the semi-final. The final was recorded in Delhi on August 30 and I couldn?t believe my luck when I was announced the winner of the contest,? he added.

The contest had a prize money of Rs 10 lakh for the winner. After income-tax deduction, the amount comes to Rs 6.67 lakh.

But Shubham would get a with-interest prize money of Rs 11 lakh after six years, just when he would be launching into a career path. ?I will use this money for higher education,? he said.

The boy?s father Kumar Naveen, who passed out from an engineering college in Motihari, runs his own business of computers in Muzaffarpur. His mother Archana Singh did her engineering from a college in Ukraine.