By SEETA PERSAD Sunday, March 15 2009

Amrit Sharma, son of Professor Chandrabhan and Mrs Shanta Sharma, was not always a bright spark. In fact, there were many instances in primary and early secondary school when his teachers and parents would work tirelessly to make him understand the simplest things. But that was no indication of things to come.

Many of Sharma’s friends and associates at the temple still remember his ignorance in spelling simple words. The way he spelt “sugar” in his own way. In Amrit’s mind, the word starts with the “sh” sound and should therefore naturally be spelt “shugar”. It seemed perfectly logical to him and it was phonetically correct. It was this very persistence in logical reasoning that would take him to great heights later on. Amrit attended Presentation College, Chaguanas, where he attained distinctions in all ten subjects at the ‘O’level. He went on to improve his report card by gaining full distinctions in five subjects at the ‘A’level for which he was awarded an Open Science Scholarship.

At Imperial College he obtained First Class Honours in the engineering degree programme, obtaining both the IEE Prize and the Terry Whodocoat Memorial Prize for being the top graduate in the course as well as the graduate with the best final year project. He then went on to win the Imperial College Scholarship for PhD research. He has been awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship and his most recent and outstanding achievement came just last month when he won the gold medal for the Automotive Design pillar at the Young European Arena of Research.

Amrit was the only UK student to win a gold medal in a technical paper and competed against 285 top researchers across the 36 countries in the European Union. He won this through his novel mathematical and optimisation techniques which will assess and ensure stability for high performance vehicles.

Amrit then opted to study at the premier science university in Europe, Imperial College in London, UK, where he is currently pursuing a PhD.

Apart from all this academic success, Amrit is a devout member of Swaha, and he credits his success to the religious upbringing and discipline of living such a life of spirituality.

“I am happy that my parents chose to attend the Swaha temple. My involvement with the temple has helped me to become focussed as in devotion one is required to become calm and to concentrate on God,” he said.

Amrit had his praises for Pundit Hardeo Persad of the Gyaan Deepak Kirtan Mandali; saying the pundit, who was a teacher for many years, took the time to reach out to the youths of the San Juan area and many of the young people went on to excel because of the work done by Persad. Amrit is always eager to return to TT for the holiday periods as he can’t wait to involve himself in temple activities.

He has penned a number of scripts for the temple based on the life and times of Lord Rama for the annual Ram Leela celebrations.

“Being involved in religious activities gives you inner satisfaction that cannot measure up to any other activities one would do in life,” he said, adding that the environment at the temple is very encouraging as you get hooked on doing work that has deep meaning.

“By doing these types of work the individual is naturally carried away into a continuous road where he never really wants to look back,” he said, noting that then there is no room for wasting time at other frivolous activities.

Amrit is a favourite at the temple as he participates in Ram Leela, music classes, Hindi classes, Sunday morning services and extra-curricular activities. He even played cricket for Gyaan Deepak and everyone fondly recalls when he attempted, without much success, sprint racing at Swaha’s sports day. To him, it’s better to try and fail, than fail to try.

Pudit Hardeo said that Amrit is a fine example for the young men who think that the temple life will take away from their happiness. “One can live a good life and also have a good time doing all the things that a young man should do,” he said.

Hardeo went on to say that one should start to build good karma from a young age so that they could reflect on something that is meaningful.

He also said that Amrit’s story should serve as an impetus to renew the energies towards motivating the youths of the temple at present. The pundit is proud that the members of the Swaha community have set a high level for others to follow. “We are a humble people, focussed on paro-upkaar or service to society, but it is always fulfilling when one of our very own makes his mark on the international scene.

Great achievements by great individuals should be firstly recognised and exalted by their home! In the case of this young man, our appreciation for his accomplishments, which has been recognised internationally through a string of international awards, is one of unbounded pride,” he said.