Mind Your Math

The one prolonged fear we have experienced from the cradle to the grave and the only thing that keeps us alive and well...the subject of much debate to the essence of innovation...this has been in our blood and in the air we breathe...in our pockets and the world around...yes I am talking about...Mathematics!!!


To me personally, this has come across as a boon and a bane....nothing less, nothing more. According to me, what is taught in school is the most scariest because of the positioning of the subject and the importance of marks and scoring a centum in your finals. But in reality this subject has something that seems like it was in me all the time. Everything in Maths is basically got to do with logic, formulae and theorems and a set of equations. Where did all of this evolve from? Man did not discover Math from thin air...he invented it right from the days of evolution. Debatable quote but worth the argument...in fact it might work both ways...let me not be controversial - man discovered math...did not invent it. I will leave it to the readers to poll around this and bang their heads to come to a conclusion.


The objective of my article is to explore maths without material. Lot of us fear numbers and literally go to the doctors to scan this unique fear which we overcome every moment in life. According to me, all the formulae, theorems and equations have been ingrained somewhere in our minds and hearts. We just put them to use when it matters the most without the knowledge of its existence or its purpose. It has been with us all these years and will be till our last breath, helping us to survive what we call 'life'. Here is my take on this...what we call Logic is actually Maths...not on all counts...but on some which I will try to explain as I go on.

Right from the days of learning the nuances of language, to our first steps and recognizing people to our sense of direction and reactions to actions, we have been doing our maths at every step of life. We knew the faster we crawled the happier others would be to give what we wanted. We knew the effort for each crawl and the effort to each first step we took in our first walk. Our parents would count the 10 steps to walk and we grew up taking those 10 steps at a time...there you go...our first number. In school, it then came to the games where it was all about the numbers (including the trump cards or the game of Uno). We grew up counting our wins with numbers, yet we feared what was on paper than what was on our mind!

Moving on, to a scene where we would know how the clock would show where we would then calculate mentally however soon or late we left, the time we would approximately reach...thereby change our calculations based on the mode of transport and the pace of the traffic. To those who thought they were weak in numbers, if you can seriously find your way to ur destination by approximity of time and derivative calculation based on the situation...I think we have achieved more than what we had imagined in school or in college. Pacing our ways while driving or crossing on dangerous roads and judging the speed by sheer agility and reflex requires (according to me) sheer mathematical brilliance. Here is my take - those who end up in minor or major accidents on roads might have been those who had been great in their papers but unable to cope up with the numbers pressure on the actual scene. I am not here to defame or deface mathematical geniuses (in their own right) on this but think about this...people who end up calculating on paper acutally lose time acting on the scene. To me, those who survive the mathematical madness of the roads are the rightful masters of mind maths - no paper, no pen.

Music is another field that has captivated my mind - the sheer rhythmic and tonal brilliance captured by artists on and off stage. What does it take to keep the music we play sane? What does it take to move our adrenalin while listenin to music? Its all about the beats and what we call - Thaalam or Taal. These are counts or taps to keep the momentum and the counts so that the music is precision oriented and not lost in the chaos of unorganized notes. Our mind has been listenin to so many beats and tunes based on mathematical calculations - ones that did not require calculations or formulaes but just the knowledge of the tempo counts. Most musicians are school or college drop outs...wondering where did all those calculations come from? Paper and pen somebody...no! Its all in the mind. Look around and you will find musical brilliance walking this planet without having achieved much in school.

Sometimes, I wonder...it is also in Love where we calculate our moves to woo the person we like in many ways possible. There have been times where there have been bad calculations and some of us have terribly gone wrong and have misfired and also got badly hit. Proposals gone wrong with replies at the rate of knots and some replies at the rate of miles per hour smashing our cheekbones with unexpected mental and physical trauma. Ah! Love...to those who get the calculations right...its smooth sailing but need to keep validating their equations. Those are people who know the X in algebra which others fail to fathom and discover. There you go...cupids indeed a professor. I am yet to solve my equation.

There are many fields that we can analyse in detail and I will leave that space to the researchers. I am here just to stimulate and provoke a thought in those minds that have denied the existence of maths (including me). I have been grown up with an utmost hate and had maximum agony with Maths and when it struck me in life later....I told myself...I have been doing it all along and I was pretty good at it! I think that is a kind of mantra that I penned for myself and which I have been following (calculating I'd say) every moment i have seen the possibility of numbers around me - at home, at work, on the roads, while walking, while talking, while listening, while thinking, while playing, while in silence.

We were been born with it, lived with it and have feared it, not realizing that it was the only saviour that brought us till today and will take us to where we want to go. This has been hiding or sleeping in us and has been pulled out at the right time to save our skins and our souls. Think about all the moments that you have been through and you will realize that 'Ifs and the buts' would have been sorted out if it were a matter of right estimations and corrective actions. Well, you might be wondering how...its actually very simple. Its got nothing to do with pen or paper or with theory or with books its just got to do with the mind...its invisible but tangible!