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Mathematics and its Consequences in the Real
World
When asked how
most people relate to math in this country of gifted
mathematicians, many shrug their shoulders and say “No biggie. I
can do most of the stuff with my eyes closed.” Their voices take
on a syrupy sweet edge as they ask me, “Do you have a problem
with math? It’s really not that tough you know. All you have to
do is practice”. I smile back winningly and quickly answer while
batting my eyelashes, “Of course, of course. After all, practice
makes perfect.” What I really want to do, of course, is
to stomp on their feet and tear the hair from their scalps and
shout, “You over-confident, smug, snotty nosed snobs!
Don’t think you can lord over me just because you can multiply
seven digit figures in your head while I can’t even add five to
nineteen without counting on my fingers.” Sigh. But it’s true.
I’m a marked woman. I seem to be the only one to walk in a crowd
of smiling math practitioners with a frown on my face and a
weight in my heart. Heaven knows how many times I have cursed,
while studying late at night for some dreaded math test, Euclid,
Pythagoras and their vast pool of genius. To me, the medieval
torture system of having your nails pulled out and math equate
to pretty much the same thing. Mathematics. Synonyms could be
suffering, misery, agony, pain, anguish or just pure evil, the
absolute essence of wickedness.
I first encountered my deadly foe
on a beautiful monsoon day. I was five years old and the world
was my oyster. It was nice and bright with white fluffy clouds,
yet it was raining at the same time. The curtains danced madly
as the wind tossed them about, suffusing the tiny dining room
with the wild scent of rain drenched earth. While sitting at a
richly carved dinner table, I was staring intently at my friend
who lay sprawled with his head buried in his notebook. I knew
he’d kept his head down because he didn’t want me to see him
crying, but he couldn’t stop me from hearing his gurgling sobs.
His mother was also present, a malevolent tyrant if there ever
was one, who sat “explaining” the homework to him. Every so
often, the explanations would be punctuated by loud slaps from
the Detestable Ogress and even louder screeching from her son.
Suddenly mother dearest couldn’t take it anymore and wailed
disparagingly, “Why have I given birth to such an idiot son? Why
couldn’t you, O Lord, have given me a child with some semblance
of a brain? Why can’t you (slap) divide thirty five (slap) by
one hundred and seventy and then multiply the quotient (slap)
with a thousand and sixty five and subtract the product (slap)
from two hundred to the power of ninety-eight (slap) (slap)?” As
you can see, my introduction to this wonderful subject was
enough to scare the living daylights out of me.
Ever since then, I suffer from
this extremely dense mental block concerning math and things
didn’t improve much with the arrival of two, very scary,
positively horrid, math teachers. One of them was my third grade
teacher, and for the sake of all the mathematicians out there,
I’ll call her Mrs. X. Mrs. Y, as I’ll call the other one, was my
fourth grade teacher. Both came during the same year and let
loose their wrath on the defenseless students like a
terrifically virulent form of a mutilating devastating plague.
The third and fourth grade populations were annihilated
overnight.
Such was my luck
that I was one of Mrs. X’s earliest victims. She had given me a
relatively easy addition problem to answer. I solved the
relatively easy addition problem. Or so I thought. It turned out
that my answer was not quite right. Guess what I received as
homework that night? I had to copy the question along with its
correct answer a hundred and four times. Okay, I’m lying.
It was more like fifty, but it’s essentially the same principal.
I’m not sure if I remember correctly, but I think I burst into
tears right then and there.
The next year turned out even
better thanks to the blessings Mrs. Y liberally showered upon
me. I was terrified of her to begin with, which did not help
greatly and in addition to that she made us recite our
multiplication tables out loud in class to a live audience. You
cannot imagine how difficult it is not to giggle while
presenting in front of spectators who stick out their tongues
and deliberately go cock eyed when the teacher’s back is
turned. But Heaven forbid if you managed to let out even the
tiniest chuckle. She would force you to remain standing in front
of the class until you recited your tables flawlessly.
The going from fifth grade
onwards became much smoother as far as math teachers are
concerned. The harrowing experiences, though, continued. Oh no,
don’t get me wrong; I went through quite a number of good
experiences as well. In the middle of my school education
somewhere for a brief period, I to my enormous surprise, started
to truly enjoy math. I enjoyed it to such an extent that I
received certificates congratulating me on my math skills. In
fact, I still have them safe and squashed in the third drawer
from the bottom of my huge study desk. In their own little way,
they mean the world to me.
Another bright moment in my
otherwise pitch black mathematical history took place in seventh
grade, where I found myself feverishly counting the days to the
next math class. The reason behind my impatience to reach maths
was due to the teacher herself. Brilliant and witty, she held me
and countless others spellbound in her wake. She swore
continuously with the eccentric vocabulary of a caustic world
weary British lady-in-tweeds that she was. When it came to
taking attendance, she had this delicious habit of adding an
adjective to each person’s name. Something along the lines of
“Twittering Timothy Perkins” who had a strange squeaky voice or
“Soft-in-the-head Mehek Siddiqui” who refused to stay quiet in
class even though she was reprimanded a thousand times over.
This led our math teacher to believe that Mehek was not really,
how do I put it?...not really all there. Though I was
forever waiting in horrified silence for my name to be called
out, I disappointingly never got any of the extremely nasty
ones. Although I was once called Shubhra the Cobra, the
reason being lost in the twirling twisted corridors of memory.
We children wore our names like war medals. They were like
battle scars- painfully begotten though once the pain subsided
they doubled as marvelous conversation starters. We spun tales
of our fantastic bravery in facing her and of our heroic deeds
while trying to outwit her and more often than not, our stories
spiraled out of control and now as I sit writing, I can’t seem
to remember what is fact and what is fiction- what really
happened in her classes and what I thought happened. However, as
a result of the highly intriguing atmosphere surrounding the
class, most students, including yours truly, began to perform
better than ever before.
As a person grows older, math
classes lose their frivolous side and the subject takes on an
even more somber tone. Concepts we’re asked to grapple with
become living breathing monsters. At least that’s the way it was
for me. I’ve come a long way from the Mrs. X’s and Y’s of my
life but alas, one has to face the harsh truth of life and right
now it’s written in curly sparkly letters, glittering in the
night sky for all to see--I am from no angle, acute or obtuse, a
willing and able math student.
It is exceptionally hard to shake
off the past sixteen years (and there’s nothing sweet about it)
of hating math with a passion and I don’t think I’ll ever be
fully cured. At the end, my conclusion remains the same; math
is inescapable. Wherever I go, whatever I do, math is always at
the other side just waiting to pounce on me and pin me down.
I’ve surrendered myself to the dreadful certainty of its
poisonous embrace wherein it’ll slowly crush my bones and
squeeze the air out of my punctured lungs until nothing is left
of me but a pathetic lumpy mass of pulpy flesh. Sad but true, it
is just another fact of life I deal with every single day.
As I draw this
wordy tirade against my sworn enemy to a close, I do so with a
faint hope that somewhere (over the rainbow) in the coming
years, the tables may be turned and it is I who will emerge
smiling and victorious and not that blasted, good-for-nothing,
stinking two-faced weasel of a subject. Amen.
Shubhra Shahare
M.A. (Year I)
Clinical Psychology
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