Parents attribute success to son’s ingenuity, Almighty

Even as their scientist son, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, is being toasted for his Pulitzer-winning “biography of cancer,” the Mukherjees at Safdarjung Enclave are visiting the Matri Mandir temple to thank the goddess.

Even as their scientist son, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, is being toasted for his Pulitzer-winning “biography of cancer,” the Mukherjees at Safdarjung Enclave are visiting the Matri Mandir temple to thank the goddess.

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“I ascribe Siddhartha’s success to Matri Mandir,” says his septuagenarian father Sibeswar Mukherjee. “In 1970, the year he was born, I helped build the temple. When he came home for his Rhodes scholarship exam, the interview fell on the temple's anniversary. Even before the result was announced, I knew Sid would get the scholarship.”

Young Siddharth’s mental prowess was evident at the age of five, says his mother Chandana. “During the admission interview to St. Columba’s, the principal asked him four questions. Siddhartha answered all four so well that the principal likened his memory to Mahatma Gandhi’s,” she recalled.

In school, at St Columba’s, Siddhartha won the Sword of Honour. “He even worked in a play with actor Shah Rukh Khan, six years his senior,” says Chandana.

As a child, says his mom, Mukherjee was studious and artistic. “Siddhartha loves to draw and sing Indian classical music. He even took lessons from a teacher of the Rashid Khan gharana.”

The scientist’s artistic connection has only grown deeper with marriage to Sarah Sze, the MacArthur award-winning sculptor who teaches at the School of Arts. The couple stays in New York with their daughters: Aariya, five, and Leela, one.