I've passed 58 years on earth and am yet to understand why God does certain things. I fully sympathise and understand the consternation of Carol Leifer. She is the one who famously asked:
Here's something I've never understood; how come men have nipples? What's the point?
Yeah! That's right! What in the world is the point of God endowing men with nipples? What are they supposed to do with them? And in God's universe there are many such surreptitious designs which makes us wonder "What was His real motive?"
Again, for instance, someone quite astute remarked "If God really wanted Adam and Eve to live happily forever in the garden of Eden, I mean if He were really serious, why did He surreptitiously endow them with reproductive organs?"
Quite true! Why did He do things like that? And imitating God, Man too has resorted to such illogical whims and fancies. Take for instance the silent 'G' in many English words. Some man has very perceptively observed:
That man didn't have much to do,
Who put the 'g' in gnat and gnu !
And why do we have illogical designs like the centipede or the tapeworm? And if God wanted peace on Earth, why did He give different teachings at different parts of the Earth? What are we supposed to do with the various religions of the Earth, some of which conflict head-on with others?
Friday, October 22, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The Bullfight Delicacy !
The fire-breathing, dynamic and spirited head-honcho of a leading multinational, a woman of urban Indian descent, during one of her business trips to Spain chanced to visit an upscale restaurant attached to a Bullfighting arena. Having witnessed a blood-curdling bullfight in the afternoon, she repaired to her room for rest, and later in the evening, returned to the restaurant attached to the sport venue.
She ordered the Chef’s Special and was not at all disappointed when she was served a pair of meat-balls in an exquisite sauce which was truly delicious. She made up her mind to revisit the place for dinner the next evening after her business meetings that were scheduled for the whole of the next day.
Next evening she returned and spiritedly ordered for the dish she had ordered the previous evening. But to her disappointment, the fare doled out was emaciated in comparison.
She summoned the Chef and gave a severe haranguing that left the latter totally breathless.
“But Senorita…”, the Chef attempted to explain, but was mercilessly cut-down by the no-nonsense woman.
“I want none of your explanations! You tempt your customers the first day only to…”
“But Senorita, let me explain!”
“Enough of your lame explanations! You brand Asians cheats, but you too resort to the same trickery…”, she was spewing forth, as she sliced the meat balls and devoured them with a knife and fork while simultaneously berating the Chef.
“But Senorita, if you only listen to my explanations…”
Just as she finished gulping down the last morsel of the frugal fare, she said “Not only was that too frugal, it was also insipid in comparison. So what’s your excuse?”
“Senorita! But the bull does not always lose!!”
Moral: Listen to what others have to say.
She ordered the Chef’s Special and was not at all disappointed when she was served a pair of meat-balls in an exquisite sauce which was truly delicious. She made up her mind to revisit the place for dinner the next evening after her business meetings that were scheduled for the whole of the next day.
Next evening she returned and spiritedly ordered for the dish she had ordered the previous evening. But to her disappointment, the fare doled out was emaciated in comparison.
She summoned the Chef and gave a severe haranguing that left the latter totally breathless.
“But Senorita…”, the Chef attempted to explain, but was mercilessly cut-down by the no-nonsense woman.
“I want none of your explanations! You tempt your customers the first day only to…”
“But Senorita, let me explain!”
“Enough of your lame explanations! You brand Asians cheats, but you too resort to the same trickery…”, she was spewing forth, as she sliced the meat balls and devoured them with a knife and fork while simultaneously berating the Chef.
“But Senorita, if you only listen to my explanations…”
Just as she finished gulping down the last morsel of the frugal fare, she said “Not only was that too frugal, it was also insipid in comparison. So what’s your excuse?”
“Senorita! But the bull does not always lose!!”
Moral: Listen to what others have to say.
The Tragic Tale of Alfred Sams
Mr. Alfred Sams had very humble beginnings and the same circumstances continued throughout his life. He was a very talented chef whose dishes were remarkably delicious and had an appealing quaintness and were served with a peculiar aesthetic arrangement that was truly captivating. He had led a fairly respectable life, but for a short prison term that was kept a well guarded secret.
While not particularly ambitious for his own self, he was rather ambitious for his son, who also was fortunate to inherit some of his father’s talent. Alfred Sams was rather insistent that his son receive the best education and at the risk of personal suffering, he admitted his son to one of the more expensive schools in England. He wanted to ensure that his son got a good education.
The son, however, though he followed his father’s advice for a few years, quickly wearied of the drab education that he was receiving, and one day, without heeding his father’s advice, quit school.
“Dad! I’d rather use my talents and capacity for hard work to succeed, instead of following a useless academic pursuit”, he told his father.
His father patiently picked up the tale. “Son! I’m sure you are aware of my culinary skills. When I was your age, there was a recruitment test for a Royal Chef at the Buckingham Palace. Many talented chefs from all over Britain applied for the job. We all had to prepare a set of dishes that were to be personally tasted by the Queen.”
The son became curious.
“And when the dishes were prepared and set before the Queen, she found the set of dishes I had prepared to be the most impressive.”
“And I was separately summoned by the Queen, who heartily appreciated my cooking. ‘Now I want to see your testimonials’, she told me plainly”
“And Son!... If I only had the benefit of a good education I would have been the Royal Chef at the Buckingham Palace instead of having to serve a prison sentence!”
While not particularly ambitious for his own self, he was rather ambitious for his son, who also was fortunate to inherit some of his father’s talent. Alfred Sams was rather insistent that his son receive the best education and at the risk of personal suffering, he admitted his son to one of the more expensive schools in England. He wanted to ensure that his son got a good education.
The son, however, though he followed his father’s advice for a few years, quickly wearied of the drab education that he was receiving, and one day, without heeding his father’s advice, quit school.
“Dad! I’d rather use my talents and capacity for hard work to succeed, instead of following a useless academic pursuit”, he told his father.
His father patiently picked up the tale. “Son! I’m sure you are aware of my culinary skills. When I was your age, there was a recruitment test for a Royal Chef at the Buckingham Palace. Many talented chefs from all over Britain applied for the job. We all had to prepare a set of dishes that were to be personally tasted by the Queen.”
The son became curious.
“And when the dishes were prepared and set before the Queen, she found the set of dishes I had prepared to be the most impressive.”
“And I was separately summoned by the Queen, who heartily appreciated my cooking. ‘Now I want to see your testimonials’, she told me plainly”
“And Son!... If I only had the benefit of a good education I would have been the Royal Chef at the Buckingham Palace instead of having to serve a prison sentence!”
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Re-examining my Atheism
As a child, between the ages of 8 and 14 or 15, I was a blind believer and was not too passionate about my beliefs. With the sort of inattention that springs from not being passionate, I was rather careless with 'the data that was given to me'. Actually I have a tendency to say 'the data that I handled', thereby seeming to imply that the data was unimportant and impersonal, and to be dealt with in whatever way one wishes. So being a lukewarm believer, my prayers were perhaps lukewarm too, and they never seemed to yield any results. Now instead of having a good look at the basic data, I developed profound doubts about the usefulness of the methods - that of theism and a belief in prayers. The reading that I did too - the type of books that were popular in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s also fostered my atheism. As an impressionable youth of 25 years (Yes! I was still impressionable at 25 and am still impressionable now at 58) I fancied the arguments of Bertrand Russell and the passionate texts of Albert Camus and the others. Marxism was the popoular political theory among the youth and in fact, every aspect of my social life led me to a 'revalluation of values'.
This attitude resulted in more severe problems for my happiness and well-being. Instead of quickly re-evaluating the subsequent method and changing track soon, I found myself too committed and hamstrung. I braved rather severe emotional storms of various kinds both in my personal and professional lives. I'd do anything but abandon the chosen method. When things got horribly bad and I had suffered sufficiently, a series of spiritual and mystical experiences came my way which I can only call Grace! I call it so because it pulled me up from the deepest pits of despondency and a dependence on others, to the bright and airy lands of hope, gratitude and genuine caring. Whereas earlier I was so dependent on others to affirm my opinion of myself, I began to breathe the freedom of an independent spirit.
The same process made me quite pliant and is still busy doing so. From an obsessive and compulsive dolt, I am being transformed into a person who has a greater degree of acceptance and into one who is willing to work in whatever limiting framework of circumstances I am placed in each day. Even my relationships with others are changing in a fundamental way. Earlier I had a very poor self-image, and as a consequence would 'project attitudes and values' that would endear me to others around me. Many of these ideas wouldn't spring from the depth of my being, but I had mastered the art of mouthing ideas that would appear intellectually 'more appealing'. I knew I was becoming an intellectual, but what I didn't realise was that I was being a 'fake'. I do have to admit that there were quite a few genuine relatioships - that with my wife, with my friend Mathew, with my colleague Karthik and with my boss Sundaram who genuinely cared for me. I also treasured the relationship with my teacher Narayanan for his out and out honesty and forthrightness. I found I could interact with him in a totally honest way. But it is only grace that is pushing me along even further to transform me from a person who would not change even in decades, to respond to altered circumstances in a period of half-a-day if not within minutes. I owe a great deal of thanks to Shirdi Sai Baba for all of this. And I tell Him that it is quite painful, and yet so rewarding!
This attitude resulted in more severe problems for my happiness and well-being. Instead of quickly re-evaluating the subsequent method and changing track soon, I found myself too committed and hamstrung. I braved rather severe emotional storms of various kinds both in my personal and professional lives. I'd do anything but abandon the chosen method. When things got horribly bad and I had suffered sufficiently, a series of spiritual and mystical experiences came my way which I can only call Grace! I call it so because it pulled me up from the deepest pits of despondency and a dependence on others, to the bright and airy lands of hope, gratitude and genuine caring. Whereas earlier I was so dependent on others to affirm my opinion of myself, I began to breathe the freedom of an independent spirit.
The same process made me quite pliant and is still busy doing so. From an obsessive and compulsive dolt, I am being transformed into a person who has a greater degree of acceptance and into one who is willing to work in whatever limiting framework of circumstances I am placed in each day. Even my relationships with others are changing in a fundamental way. Earlier I had a very poor self-image, and as a consequence would 'project attitudes and values' that would endear me to others around me. Many of these ideas wouldn't spring from the depth of my being, but I had mastered the art of mouthing ideas that would appear intellectually 'more appealing'. I knew I was becoming an intellectual, but what I didn't realise was that I was being a 'fake'. I do have to admit that there were quite a few genuine relatioships - that with my wife, with my friend Mathew, with my colleague Karthik and with my boss Sundaram who genuinely cared for me. I also treasured the relationship with my teacher Narayanan for his out and out honesty and forthrightness. I found I could interact with him in a totally honest way. But it is only grace that is pushing me along even further to transform me from a person who would not change even in decades, to respond to altered circumstances in a period of half-a-day if not within minutes. I owe a great deal of thanks to Shirdi Sai Baba for all of this. And I tell Him that it is quite painful, and yet so rewarding!
Friday, October 8, 2010
The Indefatiguable Woman !
I like the word 'balse' (pronounced bal say) which some erudite and astute dictionaries list it to mean 'minor error'. So I would say that one of the major balse of humanity is that it has always considered women as the 'weaker sex'. Many years back, Vandana Shiva, a prominent environmental activist, in one of her articles had noted that women fail to get the required appreciation because they do 'too much work involving too many skills so that their production tends not to be recdorded as work'
Take my own wife. She wakes up by 4:00 a.m. and puts in the requisite spiritual work by meditating for roughly an hour. Later she warms the milk and gets her physical exercise by going to a hata yoga school where she is active from 6:00 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. On returning home by 8:00 a.m. she immediately gets busy cooking. She has to rinse the vessels the maid-servant has washed, cut the vegetables, cook the rice, make sambar and subzi and then to ensure that I keep my fitness discourages me from eating rice and prepares fluffy chappathis. The rice is essentially for my father and my wife. Later she clears the dining table and tidies the kitchen. She gets to read the newspaper for the day only by 10:00 a.m. and then showers and meticulously does her prayers and other rituals with quite intense devotion. It is only by around 11:30 a.m. that she gets to eat her first meal of the day, as it is a practice in our house to have a brunch. My wife doesn't spend too much time cleaning up the house because her body structure has not endowed her with too much stamina like some specially gifted ladies do. By the time she is done with the above tasks it is usually 11:45 a.m. and she is quite exhausted. She rests briefly, waiting for the second and final visit of the maid-servant. She is generally around supervising the work of the maid servant and after she is done, she would prefer to go to her room upstairs and rest, but she has to wait for my father to arrive after his morning stroll. So it happens that only around 12:45 or 1:00 p.m., after my father returns, that she gets time for relaxation.
Other housewives spend quite a lot of time cleaning up the whole house too. They dust the furniture, wipe window panes and sills, curtain pelmets and so on. Many families that have children have to ensure that the kids breakfast is done and their lunch boxes are packed by 7:30 a.m. Mothers ensure that their wards school bags are laden with the right text books for the day and their homework is in order. In many houses, women cook a second meal in the evenings.
If the woman happens to be working in an office, I shudder to visualise how at all they are capable of handling their jobs after all this. Where do women get their strength? Who calls women the weaker sex? And we now have some stupid and inconsiderate commission equating the status of a housewife with those of beggars!
Meanwhile I am busy meditating and also engaged with thinking about world problems and my spiritual advancement right from around 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. when my wife joins me upstairs. At other times I am acquiring the requisite intellectual skills and polishing my writing abilities.
A wonderful TED Talk on the wonderful ways in which women are moving up in the social scale can be enjoyed by clicking on the link below (GIVE A MINUTE FOR THE PROGRAM TO LOAD !):
http://www.ted.com/talks/hanna_rosin_new_data_on_the_rise_of_women.html
Take my own wife. She wakes up by 4:00 a.m. and puts in the requisite spiritual work by meditating for roughly an hour. Later she warms the milk and gets her physical exercise by going to a hata yoga school where she is active from 6:00 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. On returning home by 8:00 a.m. she immediately gets busy cooking. She has to rinse the vessels the maid-servant has washed, cut the vegetables, cook the rice, make sambar and subzi and then to ensure that I keep my fitness discourages me from eating rice and prepares fluffy chappathis. The rice is essentially for my father and my wife. Later she clears the dining table and tidies the kitchen. She gets to read the newspaper for the day only by 10:00 a.m. and then showers and meticulously does her prayers and other rituals with quite intense devotion. It is only by around 11:30 a.m. that she gets to eat her first meal of the day, as it is a practice in our house to have a brunch. My wife doesn't spend too much time cleaning up the house because her body structure has not endowed her with too much stamina like some specially gifted ladies do. By the time she is done with the above tasks it is usually 11:45 a.m. and she is quite exhausted. She rests briefly, waiting for the second and final visit of the maid-servant. She is generally around supervising the work of the maid servant and after she is done, she would prefer to go to her room upstairs and rest, but she has to wait for my father to arrive after his morning stroll. So it happens that only around 12:45 or 1:00 p.m., after my father returns, that she gets time for relaxation.
Other housewives spend quite a lot of time cleaning up the whole house too. They dust the furniture, wipe window panes and sills, curtain pelmets and so on. Many families that have children have to ensure that the kids breakfast is done and their lunch boxes are packed by 7:30 a.m. Mothers ensure that their wards school bags are laden with the right text books for the day and their homework is in order. In many houses, women cook a second meal in the evenings.
If the woman happens to be working in an office, I shudder to visualise how at all they are capable of handling their jobs after all this. Where do women get their strength? Who calls women the weaker sex? And we now have some stupid and inconsiderate commission equating the status of a housewife with those of beggars!
Meanwhile I am busy meditating and also engaged with thinking about world problems and my spiritual advancement right from around 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. when my wife joins me upstairs. At other times I am acquiring the requisite intellectual skills and polishing my writing abilities.
A wonderful TED Talk on the wonderful ways in which women are moving up in the social scale can be enjoyed by clicking on the link below (GIVE A MINUTE FOR THE PROGRAM TO LOAD !):
http://www.ted.com/talks/hanna_rosin_new_data_on_the_rise_of_women.html
XXX
Thursday, October 7, 2010
My horrible Math Skills - 3
In continuation of the last few posts, I give the Mind bender problem that figured in today's (29th September 2010) Bangalore Times. I got the solution so fast that I almost chose not to verify the answer given. The problem is as follows:
A total of 15 delegates from Africa, Asia, America and Europe meet at an international conference. Each continent sends a different number of delegates and each is represented by at least one delegate. America and Asia send a total of 6 delegates. Asia and Europe send a total of 7 delegates. Which continent has sent 4 delegates?
When I saw the problem, my mind seemed to simultaneously consider America, Asia and Europe. And when I saw the numbers 6, 7 and 4, my mind automatically zeroed in on the number 4 and by lateral thinking I assigned the number 4 to Asia as it was the common continent in the two data. Then I just happened to try whether it would work if by the ensuing obviously logical deduction that America sends 2 and Europe sends 3. So if Asia=4, America=2 and Europe=3, evidently Africa must be 6. It seemed so simple!
Then when I looked at the answer, this is what I see:
How complicated the whole thing seems! Yes, the answer is infallible. But just to be doubly sure you are right and have eliminated all the other logical possibilities, is it worth the amount of trouble? But people scarcely seem to take the trouble when it concerns the problems of life. Take my friend for instance who readily betrays without a trace of fear. In fact after reading the above answer, I felt worried whether I had not considered any of the other logical possibilities. Then I felt how foolish of me! - When I've got the right answer.
A total of 15 delegates from Africa, Asia, America and Europe meet at an international conference. Each continent sends a different number of delegates and each is represented by at least one delegate. America and Asia send a total of 6 delegates. Asia and Europe send a total of 7 delegates. Which continent has sent 4 delegates?
When I saw the problem, my mind seemed to simultaneously consider America, Asia and Europe. And when I saw the numbers 6, 7 and 4, my mind automatically zeroed in on the number 4 and by lateral thinking I assigned the number 4 to Asia as it was the common continent in the two data. Then I just happened to try whether it would work if by the ensuing obviously logical deduction that America sends 2 and Europe sends 3. So if Asia=4, America=2 and Europe=3, evidently Africa must be 6. It seemed so simple!
Then when I looked at the answer, this is what I see:
How many delegates are from Asia? Since they make a total of 6 with those from America which has at least sent 1, they can be 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. Three would be impossible since it would yield an equal number of delegates from America. 1 would yield 5 from America, 6 from Europe and hence 3 from Africa. This would be impossible, for one continent has sent 4 delegates. Two would yield 4 from America, 5 from Europe and 4 from Africa, which is impossible because Asia and America would have the same number.
How complicated the whole thing seems! Yes, the answer is infallible. But just to be doubly sure you are right and have eliminated all the other logical possibilities, is it worth the amount of trouble? But people scarcely seem to take the trouble when it concerns the problems of life. Take my friend for instance who readily betrays without a trace of fear. In fact after reading the above answer, I felt worried whether I had not considered any of the other logical possibilities. Then I felt how foolish of me! - When I've got the right answer.
Now I realize that most of the lateral thinking is divinely inspired. I wonder whether if one sets out to cultivate lateral thinking by reading books and practicing from them, one would really be successful!
Could my dismal failure in mathematics be a divine gift? Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev talks about cooking and child rearing. He says that a commercial establishment in Coimbatore tested several formulations in various percentages of rice and urad dal and pounded rice in an effort to get delectably soft idlis when cooked. He rightly says that it sounds stupid. His grandmother prepared soft, fluffy idlis every time she tried them out and all through her life. She simply seemed to know! He says that Man knows these things if only he would trust his intuition. It is only when you logically try to deduce an answer and by analysis, proceeding carefully step by step that these problems arise. You don't seem to know anything at all.
Jaggi also talks about an experience he had in the west. He came upon a book on child rearing and as he kept browsing through he saw among other stupid and irrelevant inanities, a direction to hopeful mothers that when a baby is 3 months old, the mother has to kiss the baby a specified number of times (say 45) in a day. So as he says, if from morning to evening she has been busy and decides to go by the book, she will have to kiss the baby 45 times between 6nd 7 p.m. Before the advent of the ulta-modern age, mothers seemed to know when a baby needed a kiss and not deserved a kiss!
To conclude I put forth two common quotes:
Reason takes you from point A to point B. Imagination takes you everywhere !
I don't know why but I give another quote that rings similarly:
Good girls go to heaven! Bad girls go everywhere !
My horrid Math Skills - 2
Earlier I wrote to write about my inherent weakness in solving mindbender problems of the mathematical type. For some reason I never seem to get the inspiration to arrive at the solution. Others say that there is no such nonsense such as inspiration. It is your own inherent capacity - you either have it or you don't. Hence it happens that armed with this world view they see a successful person essentially as a talented person in his own right who doesn't have to owe thanks to anyone. No need of gratitude; no such things like providence and hence no such Provider.
Hence it has come about that some people are venerated beyond their dreams and aspirations, and othyers are condemned beyond their wildest nightmares. So you find a Bill Gates and you also find an Anand Jon - the Indian male model sentenced to 60 years of incarceration for an unfortunate sexcapade in the USA.
Such an obvious disparity strikes an impressionable mind. Even as a kid of 12, I wanted to be a world-famous cricketer like Sachin Tendulkar with as much glory as he is getting. As I grew into a college-going teenager, I wanted to be handsome and sought after by girls like Cary Grant and Gregory Peck. As I grew up and matured further, I wanjted to be a talented writer like Jorge Luis Borges. For some reason unknown to me, I wasn't too keen on wealth and did not fancy much getting rich. With these tendencies, when I fell in love, I became so deeply and helplessly attached that, when the universe chose to deny me the woman I loved, I fell headlong into deeper and deeper depression and had to face great shame and humiliation. For years I felt life was not worth living.
It was precisely for these reasons that, in the earlier days children, when they attained 8 years of age used to be sent to a good teacher who was an ardent devotee of a Guru who would ensure to prevent such desires from cropping up in the minds of young kids.
And then began a series of events that was to give me an understanding of the way the universe works. I became a mystic of sorts. (Came across a good definition of Mystic - a person who wants to know how the universe works, but is too lazy to study physics !) I came to acquire a degree of peace. I suspend judgment, and in a feeble hypocritical attempt to retain some humility, I just call it Grace.
Now I have come to believe in inspiration and this will be discussed in the next post.
Hence it has come about that some people are venerated beyond their dreams and aspirations, and othyers are condemned beyond their wildest nightmares. So you find a Bill Gates and you also find an Anand Jon - the Indian male model sentenced to 60 years of incarceration for an unfortunate sexcapade in the USA.
Such an obvious disparity strikes an impressionable mind. Even as a kid of 12, I wanted to be a world-famous cricketer like Sachin Tendulkar with as much glory as he is getting. As I grew into a college-going teenager, I wanted to be handsome and sought after by girls like Cary Grant and Gregory Peck. As I grew up and matured further, I wanjted to be a talented writer like Jorge Luis Borges. For some reason unknown to me, I wasn't too keen on wealth and did not fancy much getting rich. With these tendencies, when I fell in love, I became so deeply and helplessly attached that, when the universe chose to deny me the woman I loved, I fell headlong into deeper and deeper depression and had to face great shame and humiliation. For years I felt life was not worth living.
It was precisely for these reasons that, in the earlier days children, when they attained 8 years of age used to be sent to a good teacher who was an ardent devotee of a Guru who would ensure to prevent such desires from cropping up in the minds of young kids.
And then began a series of events that was to give me an understanding of the way the universe works. I became a mystic of sorts. (Came across a good definition of Mystic - a person who wants to know how the universe works, but is too lazy to study physics !) I came to acquire a degree of peace. I suspend judgment, and in a feeble hypocritical attempt to retain some humility, I just call it Grace.
Now I have come to believe in inspiration and this will be discussed in the next post.
Where does the leap of reason spring from?
I am singularly weak in mathematics. For some reason the type of intelligence that is needed to be adept at mathematics has eluded me totally till now. When I sometimes see some math puzzles and the solutions that are given to them, I am amazed at the 'leap of reason' at certain crucial steps, and to my limited understanding, such leaps of reason are simply divine! I am amazed how one could think of a step like that? Even more astounding to me is, how on earth could one conceive of a problem like that! Take the 'Mindbender' Puzzle that figured in the Bangalore Times section of The Times of India today (28th September 2010):
My brother Julian is a little simple. I recently asked him to buy some ribbon for my daughter's pretty pink bonnet. He went to the haberdashery shop for the required length and accidentally interchanged the feet and inches. When I measured the resulting ribbon, I only had 5/8th of the length I required. How much ribbon did I originally ask for?
I thought of trying my hand at the problem - specially now that I had a 'partial understanding of the way the world works', so I started off this way:
I decided to see the solution. Here it is :
1st Step: Label what I asked for as A feet and B inches. (Now who could think of that?)
2nd Step: So I had to ask for (12xA + B) but asked (12xB + A) (o.k. This is simple)
3rd Step:Which means that :
(5/8)x(12xA + B) = (12xB +A) (o.k. This is also quite easy)
4th Step: Simplifying the above equation gives :
A in feet = (91/52) x B (This too is simple)
5th Step: As B is the number of inches, it can only be between 1 and 12 and must give A as a whole number of Feet
6th Step: Which means that B is a number such that it should give 13 in the denominator as 91 is only divisible by 13 to give 7.
( In my understanding these 2 steps are an 'inspired' leap of reason)
7th Step: And the number which cancels 52 to give 13 in the denominator is 4 .
8th Step: So we have the Answer that B is 4 and A is 7.
SO I HAD ASKED MY BROTHER TO GET ME 7 FEET 4 INCHES OF RIBBON AND HE BOUGHT 4 FEET 7 INCHES (A clear exposition helps).
If I were given such a problem in my high school examination, after my feebly attempted steps, I would have lapsed into a reverie - 'How old is the daughter? Is she sexy? Could she be of a friendly type or would she be moody? Is there a chance that she has a bobbed hair? O.K., if I meet her you know what I'll tell her? I'll tell her that...' and so on I would go along for a whole quarter of an hour before realizing I was in an examination and had to get on with the other questions.
Which explains why I got just 35% marks, which is just the marks required to pass the examination, evidently given by a sympathetic examiner to ensure that I pass, maybe responding to a directive from the state government, to ensure that a particular percentage of students pass the examination to bring a good name to the government that it is doing well in the field of education.
xxx
My brother Julian is a little simple. I recently asked him to buy some ribbon for my daughter's pretty pink bonnet. He went to the haberdashery shop for the required length and accidentally interchanged the feet and inches. When I measured the resulting ribbon, I only had 5/8th of the length I required. How much ribbon did I originally ask for?
I thought of trying my hand at the problem - specially now that I had a 'partial understanding of the way the world works', so I started off this way:
1st Step : Since he got 5/8th of the length, that implies he lost 1 - 5/8 = 3/8 of the length.
2nd Step: What number when multiplied by 1/12 (since 1 feet = 12 inches) causes a loss of 3/8 ?
3rd Step: So if the number is 'p' then (p)*(1/12) = 3/8
or p/12 = 3/8
or p = 36/8 or 4.5
So is the answer 4 feet plus 0.5 feet or 4 feet and 6 inches?
Let us check:
Is 4 feet six inches 5/8ths the length of 6 feet 4 inches?
4 feet 6 inches is 54 inches and 6 feet 4 inches is 76 inches
So what is 54/78 ?
That is 9/13 and not equal to 5/8
Since I did not get the correct answer I QUIT !
or p/12 = 3/8
or p = 36/8 or 4.5
So is the answer 4 feet plus 0.5 feet or 4 feet and 6 inches?
Let us check:
Is 4 feet six inches 5/8ths the length of 6 feet 4 inches?
4 feet 6 inches is 54 inches and 6 feet 4 inches is 76 inches
So what is 54/78 ?
That is 9/13 and not equal to 5/8
Since I did not get the correct answer I QUIT !
I decided to see the solution. Here it is :
1st Step: Label what I asked for as A feet and B inches. (Now who could think of that?)
2nd Step: So I had to ask for (12xA + B) but asked (12xB + A) (o.k. This is simple)
3rd Step:Which means that :
(5/8)x(12xA + B) = (12xB +A) (o.k. This is also quite easy)
4th Step: Simplifying the above equation gives :
A in feet = (91/52) x B (This too is simple)
5th Step: As B is the number of inches, it can only be between 1 and 12 and must give A as a whole number of Feet
6th Step: Which means that B is a number such that it should give 13 in the denominator as 91 is only divisible by 13 to give 7.
( In my understanding these 2 steps are an 'inspired' leap of reason)
7th Step: And the number which cancels 52 to give 13 in the denominator is 4 .
8th Step: So we have the Answer that B is 4 and A is 7.
SO I HAD ASKED MY BROTHER TO GET ME 7 FEET 4 INCHES OF RIBBON AND HE BOUGHT 4 FEET 7 INCHES (A clear exposition helps).
If I were given such a problem in my high school examination, after my feebly attempted steps, I would have lapsed into a reverie - 'How old is the daughter? Is she sexy? Could she be of a friendly type or would she be moody? Is there a chance that she has a bobbed hair? O.K., if I meet her you know what I'll tell her? I'll tell her that...' and so on I would go along for a whole quarter of an hour before realizing I was in an examination and had to get on with the other questions.
Which explains why I got just 35% marks, which is just the marks required to pass the examination, evidently given by a sympathetic examiner to ensure that I pass, maybe responding to a directive from the state government, to ensure that a particular percentage of students pass the examination to bring a good name to the government that it is doing well in the field of education.
xxx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)