Mathematics

 

I can still remember my Grade 6 mathematics periods at St Joseph’s, Allahabad.

It is 2 pm on a blazing summer afternoon. Lunch is over and I have spent the last hour playing in the sun. I gulp down some decidedly not-cold water from the cement water tank with its 12 taps, wipe the sweat from my face and hear the bell.

I hurry back to class. Mathematics awaits — and, unfortunately, so does the strictest teacher in school.

The lone fan is turning at half speed, moving little more than hot air around the room. Fifty boys are packed into the classroom, sweaty, sticky and not exactly fragrant. The weekend is approaching. My mind is already there.

Then the master walks in.

A hurried, noisy “Good afternoon, Sir!” erupts from 50 boys.

He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t say a word. He walks straight to the front, picks up a stick of chalk and starts writing on the blackboard.

Screeeech.

The chalk squeaks. The noise in the classroom slowly dies down. He carries on writing as though none of us exists.

Then we see the dreaded sum:

A train travelling at 125 kmph enters a platform 100 metres long. The train itself is 150 metres long. How long will it take for the entire train to clear the platform?

I stare at the blackboard.

At that moment, I had absolutely no interest in trains.

I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I certainly wasn’t interested in the love life of a train and a platform.

The answer, of course, is 7.2 seconds.

And even now I wonder: who needed to know this?

The driver? The station master? The passengers?

I had travelled by train many times as a boy. I loved trains. I loved sitting by the window and watching Allahabad disappear into the countryside. But never once did I wonder whether the train would take exactly 7.2 seconds to clear a platform.

And if it took 7.3 seconds, what exactly was I supposed to do about it?

Somewhere along the way, we decided that knowing this was an essential life skill.

I’m still waiting for it to become useful.

But perhaps that isn’t really the point.

Those sums, those blackboards, those squeaking pieces of chalk and those stern masters are part of the landscape of childhood. We didn’t know it then, but we were collecting memories along with marks.

I may have forgotten many of the answers I was expected to remember.

But I remember the classroom.

I remember the heat, the fan, the noise, the trains — and 50 boys trying very hard not to fall asleep.

Maybe that was the real lesson. Some things are useful because they help you solve a problem. Others are useful because, years later, they help you remember who you were.