Mathematics!

What is your favorite subject? Most of us as kids would have been asked this at some point of their life. You can't discuss weather nor any of those mundane conversations starters with a kid. So you stick to stock questions like this. So what was my favorite subject? The answer was always a no-brainer for me, English and Maths. English came naturally to me, I could write essays without blinking an eye so it was definitely on top. As for mathematics its a rather long story.

The responsibility of her daughters education was on amma's shoulders. We played with achan and we studied with amma. Everyday after school she would sit with us and make us do our homework. Before I proceed, you should know something about amma. She was and still is extremely good at maths. And she was also extremely quick to loose her temper. And the above two mentioned qualities have been missed in my genetic makeup.

You can add up two and two and get endless possibilities if you don't know that it should lead to four. I am generalizing here. Of course with my eleven fingers I was comfortable with all additions that stayed below eleven, but what about eight plus four? That was out of my league. Eight plus four would eventually trigger twelve in my mind after having worked on them for a bit. Then I would look at amma to analyze whether twelve would be what she would be expecting. 

Meanwhile, amma would be looking at me and wondering why the dunderhead(that's me) is looking at her and not giving her an answer, and naturally her temper would start to boil. I would notice amma's face slowly turn pink with compressed anger. It would begin from the tip of her nostrils and spread. The twelve which would have reached the tip of my tongue would dissolve into a thirteen.

So with thirteen becoming the new star on the horizon, I would again look down at the figures, round the eight a bit  more, make sure my addition sign is perfect, bite my lips and give out the impression that rain or shine I am going to solve this puzzle. But all I would be thinking of is how heat waves of anger seem to be radiating from her. Seconds would turn into minutes. My twelve and thirteen would still be wrestling it out with each other and I would be undecided. It would have been easier to keep on counting past eleven in my mind, but my mind would be strangely numb. Finally amma would ask me angrily whether I had the answer or not. I cant be expected to take this long during an exam she would say.The moment I hear her tone, flood gates would open and tears would come unbidden to my eyes as I realize that this is the edge of the precipice. My heart would stop pumping and I would look at her through blurred tear rimmed eyes and blurt out FOURTEEN!

I usually missed whenever we sat to learn maths and i would always get suitably punished either on the arm or leg whichever was closest to her hands. Whatever patience amma had would dissolve when she saw tears in my eyes. She could never fathom why I cried before every answer. And I never figured out how to stop those tears from coming. [I still haven't] So my addition days at home were a blur of pink, tears and a whole lot of beatings. But the worse was about to come.

Addition didn't give me as many problems as the rest of the math family. Subtraction seemed to have been formed to torture the souls who couldn't count backwards fast enough. And leave alone normal numbers subtraction with decimals was my Waterloo! It was bad enough that I had to borrow from the next number but the dots in between were an added distraction. I tried counting with my fingers, my toes even but the numbers always missed their mark and the punishments continued. Somehow for examinations, since amma was not breathing near my neck while I added and subtracted I made less mistakes than at home. So while I never got a hundred in maths I always managed to scrape low nineties or high eighties.

Multiplication and division also lay claim to tripping me up frequently. Geometry, algebra, logarithms also joined in the gang war. They were all on one side and I was alone in the other.Finally in my eighth standard amma announced that she was not going to tutor me anymore. Time had come for me to stand on my own to feet and face Mr x and Mr y. Was she confident that I would deal with them on my own or was she simply tired after teaching me? I don't know the answer to that yet. But whatever success I have had with numbers is because of her. After seventh standard I have been on my own with Mathematics stumbling along sometimes falling sometimes succeeding. I even went up to the extent of taking up engineering which had a lot of maths in it.

So with this rich history in numbers where am I now? I am still fighting the war with numbers. In our day to day life it is difficult to ignore the numbers. When I first calculated our bank balance and converted it to Indian Rupees we became millionaires in the league of Ambani's and I was left stunned and breathless until my husband pointed out I had added a wee bit too many zeros at the end. On some days the zeros get missed out and we are plunged into near future poverty. Thankfully, I chose wisely and married a man who can multiply and divide like the best of them. 

So after all this, why is it then that maths is one of my favorite subjects? The suspense of writing x=8 and y=4 and looking at amma, who would nod if it is right  and the thrill that followed after getting the correct solution was worth everything. Amma would calmly move on to the next question but I lived for those rare moments. When your equations balance themselves out it beats any story hands down.