Mathematics !?!?
Mathematics! Oh the bane of it! It confounds me, confuses me, befuddles me, bewilders me…….you get the drift. In my opinion the world is divided into two sections. Math people. And no-math people. I am obviously the latter. You are either born with it or you’re not. You can’t acquire it. A talent for numbers that is. No, you just can’t. I am the prime example. No matter how hard I tried or how much I slogged, it came to nothing. I have always had this love hate relationship with math. I have tried to love math but math has persistently hated me and given me the boot.
It started long ago. It was really okay till the time we were being taught our tables….two twos are four….that sort of thing. But then around grade 3 or 4 came the real stuff. Problems. Where Ram had 5 mangoes and Shyam had six. And that’s when the trouble really started because I really had no idea what happened when they gave their mangoes away or added some or whatever. It really didn’t matter. I was never really interested in Ram or Shyam anyway. And even less in what happened to their mangoes. Predictably it went downhill from there.
Teachers came and went. I’d slog through to the next class. Tutors came and went as math grew bigger and bigger till I lost sight. But I tried. Oh yes I never gave up. Each time I sat for a test or an exam I just knew this time I had it right. It was working out really well. Till the answer sheets came and the marks were announced. Something somewhere had gone wrong again.
But I toiled and ploughed on. Finally I was in the tenth grade and inevitably there came the final exams. (My final exams for maths anyway.) We had worked really hard. The tutor and me. I was confident this time. And yes I knew everything. I didn’t leave out as single sum. I knew it all.
Soon it was time for the ceremonial burning of the mathematical tome. I did it with much aplomb and great glee. This was my time, my revenge for years and years of relentless torture and unrequited love.
And then the results came out. I had passed math scraping on my knees; through the skin of my teeth.
But then I pride myself on having a forgiving nature and since all’s well that ends well, I let bygones be bygones to live happily ever after.
P.s. I did have the ultimate revenge. My daughter excels in math. Needless to say she got the mutant gene from her father.
