The Memoirs of an Eighty year Old- Episode VIII

Episode VIII- Grandpa’s Love for Mathematics

Hello readers I am back again with this month's episode and the title itself says it all. Grandpa totally loves math, calculations and conversions. Being an Engineer who worked in the Indian Railways most of his life was spent outdoors, on the tracks; getting those re-laid, repaired, trying new procedures to strengthen the rail tracks all in the given tight schedule. 

I remember the day he was walking in the parking area of our building because it was cold outside and grandma denied him the permission to go walking outside. Grandpa told me how he counted the steps from one side of the compound wall to another and calculated how many rounds he needed to walk to complete the two kilometers of his daily walking target. 

He said calculating distances was one of the first thing he mastered when he joined the Railways as a young man of 22 years. He can convert centimeters to feet to kilometers in seconds. We have to really concentrate to understand it completely. He goes that fast in calculations. In another situation grandpa was doing his daily walking in the house and when I asked he again explained another set of calculations! 

I am sure good at math and always got good marks but I still hate the subject. Grandma gets so irritated sometimes with all this stuff that she forbids grandpa for explaining any kind of numerical to her. That of course doesn't stop our grandpa. If he wants to explain or tell grandma something, he will, until she finally listens to him if only to stop him from interrupting her work.

I was told or rather messaged by one of their grandsons to ask grandpa about 17th table story. The story is that this grandson lived with them for three years while studying in school. So each time he was either watching the telly or was reading some book other than his subjects or just sitting idle grandpa would ask him to recite a Mathematics table. The most he asked was the 17th table which apparently the grandson either failed to answer correctly or took too much time to reply. Grandpa must have asked him about this table at least a hundred times, maybe even more! When we were talking about this the grandson called and our dear grandpa told him that he had to recite the table the next time he came to their house. 

One has to actually listen to grandpa go on calculating even the decimals in his mind to understand what I have written about. If any of you, readers are math crazy, well I am not going to say anything more about it. J Meet you in the next episode. Be happy, be positive and be human.