Work Pays for Quiz’s Top Scorer : Education: The state Academic Decathlon standout, who led in three categories, views studying as his job.

Anant Sahai, a Thousand Oaks High School senior, always has accepted the Indian philosophy that there is a single purpose to the first 25 years of life: to be a student.

The teaching was ingrained in him by his parents, both natives of India, and has put him in good stead at Thousand Oaks High School, where he maintains an A average.

Sahai’s academic work ethic paid off in this year’s California Academic Decathlon, a test of students’ knowledge and their ability to perform under pressure. Sahai was the highest scorer in the state, racking up 8,878 of a possible 10,000 points.

The 17-year-old scored his victory in his second year as a member of the Toads, or Thousand Oaks Academic Decathlon team, outranking about 500 high school students from across the state.

Sahai won gold medals in the categories of math, science and fine arts, where he made a perfect score. He also won a gold medal for best overall score, and a silver medal in social science.

The Thousand Oaks team finished 11th of 46 teams statewide in the competition this month.

A math and science whiz whose passions include computer programming, Sahai said he even surpassed his own high expectations with his victory--particularly with his perfect score in fine arts.

“It was kind of surprising to me,” said Sahai, a slender student with a quick smile who describes himself as relaxed. Nonetheless, he has been driven enough to spend at least an hour a day during the week and up to 10 hours daily on weekends studying for the decathlon, in addition to his regular studies.

Beyond school, Sahai works 15 hours a week as a computer programmer at Rockwell Research Center in Thousand Oaks--which he says is more like school than work. He also maintains strong ties to his Indian culture.

Sahai has done volunteer work with the India Cultural Society of the Conejo-Simi Valley area, a group his parents helped to found that is dedicated to celebrating Indian history and culture. Sahai serves as vice president of the society’s youth division and helps coordinate activities such as an upcoming Indian spring festival in April.

What may have transformed Sahai from just another bright student to a high achiever was the two years he spent with his family in Pilani, India, where he attended second and third grades.

“The schools are much harder than here,” Sahai said. “Here, the first six grades are nothing, they’re like jokes. People learn very little and basically the time is wasted. There, I was expected to know Hindi as well as English, and the times tables up to 12.”

Jyoti Sahai recalled that she helped her son cram for four months to learn to write Hindi, which he already had learned to speak at home, and to learn the required times tables.

“His capacity for hard work came from that,” she said. Sahai now speaks fluent Hindi as well as Spanish.

John Pearson, a history teacher who coaches the Thousand Oaks academic decathlon team along with science department chairman Joe Carolan, attributed Anant’s success to “a very, very strong work ethic.”

“He believes his job is to learn, and he does that to a degree that is almost incredible,” Pearson said of Sahai. “He has a very fine mind, but he also works very hard.” Sahai said he has learned a lot about science at home from his father, Rajeshwar, an electrical engineer, his mother, a laboratory technician, and his uncle, a nuclear physicist. His younger brother, Amit, 15, is a sophomore at Thousand Oaks who is planning to join the decathlon team next year.

Sahai has been accepted at the University of California, Berkeley, and has also applied to the California Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University.

The top scorer in the state academic decathlon said he has taken most of the advanced courses offered at Thousand Oaks and is looking ahead to college, including perhaps a trip to India this summer to visit family--and at least another eight years as a student.

But his decathlon days, he said with some regret, are over. “I’m in my decathlon retirement now,” he said with a grin.