Each year many students who dream of becoming an engineer and get admission into a prestigious college. After completing their class 12 exams, students work hard to get admission into the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) by clearing the IIT JEE exam.
After studying at IIT, students are mostly assured of getting good job offers in India and abroad. While many students dream of getting into IIT and getting good jobs, others decide to take a different route. Today, we will tell about one such man who became a monk after graduating from IIT.
Mahan Maharaj, born Mahan Mitra in 1968, also known as Mahan Mj and Swami Vidyanathananda, is an Indian mathematician and monk of the Ramakrishna Order. Mahan Mj currently works as a Professor of Mathematics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. He is known for his work in hyperbolic geometry, geometric group theory, low-dimensional topology, and complex geometry.
Mahan Mj completed his studies at St. Xavier's Collegiate School, Calcutta, till Class 12th. He then went to IIT Kanpur after securing an All India Rank (AIR) of 67 in the Joint Entrance Examination. He wanted to study electrical engineering initially but later switched to mathematics. He graduated with a Masters in mathematics from IIT Kanpur in 1992.
Mahan Mj then joined the Ph.D. program at the University of California, Berkeley, in mathematics. He worked for a short time at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai in 1998 after completing his doctorate from UC Berkeley.
Till 2015, he was a Professor of Mathematics and Dean of Research at the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University.
Mahan Mj decided to not opt for a high-paying job and rather became a monk of the Ramakrishna order in 1998. He is fluent in English, Hindi, and Bengali. He also understands the Tamil language after living in the southern part of India at IMSc. "I am enjoying being a monk as much as I enjoy my mathematics," he said about being a monk.
