It is amazing how people differ from one another in spite of there being so many of them on this planet. Wonder, how a little thumb can have so many variations to make each person distinct from another. There are other differences such as in everyday habits. Einstein was known to sleep ten hours a night while Margaret Thatcher slept for four hours when she was the Prime Minister. Both were very successful in their life. No reason is known. Regarding myself, I do not keep count of my sleep hours. But there are other things that bother me. My BMI hovers over the obesity level. This is in spite of a strict dietary regimen and some exercise. My doctor is not happy. When I tell him, he has an amusing expression on his face. He wants to know if I have ever seen an obese rickshaw puller.
There are people who are very active all their life. Some have climbed the Everest at the unenviable age of eighty. Then there are people who are bed-ridden in their sixties struggling with ailing memory. We do not know the reason for these oddities of life. Medical science is still an incomplete area of research in spite of having done much to make us live better and longer.
In my university days I had a roommate who was the best in his class. We hardly saw him studying. They say he had a photographic memory. Any page that he read once was imprinted on his memory. These are some of the many puzzles in heaven and earth that beats the human mind. I give up.
Nature has a prominent role in our life. It has many forces that affect life in different ways. Some are good and some bad. Look at the earthquakes that are now a regular phenomenon both in frequency and ferocity. Tsunami is another one. These were not that bad in our younger years. Reasons are many, one being nature's unhappiness due to our indulgence. Anything we do has an impact on nature. More so, as there are too many us. This is beside greed exceeding the need.
In spite of being a very connected world, we have similarities and differences in our national habits. This ranges from eating to recreation. Apart from differences in food habit there are many similarities. We love cinema. Look at films that are released almost simultaneously all over the world, including ours. On the other hand, consider some recreational habits such as crossword puzzles that are favourite pastime for commuters in many parts of the world. Not us, in spite of this being a healthier pursuit. Should we want to connect, our newspapers can help.
Euclid was a bother in my school days. Teachers who taught the subject were equally bothersome. Yet the world of numbers is an enchanting place with many fascinating characters and their idiosyncrasies'. Euclid was one of them. The seashore was his slate where he worked on his theorems, not different from children building castles on the shore. In a similar manner Newton got his ideas from the apple tree in his house as a fallen apple hit him on the head. And there was the boy Mathematician Galois who got killed in a duel fighting for the love of his life. Fermat was another one of them who enjoyed teasing people with puzzles, mathematical assertions to be proven right or wrong. Not different from brain teasers in crossword puzzles, though more difficult. One such assertion known as Fermat's Last Theorem, took more than three centuries to be proven right. Wonder how he got the idea!
In this context, I have a story from schooldays about a friend who was son of a rich man. He hated Mathematics. None of his private tutors survived long as they failed to teach him the subject. A smart teacher took up the challenge. He took his lessons to the playground. The game was to shoot balls from the penalty area. They took turn as they kicked the ball. The boy was asked to keep the count. It was not long before the boy realized that he was given lessons in counting. He left the field and that was the end of the teacher.
My grandmother was not a Mathematician and yet she had a theorem to control our behaviour. One of them was to stop us from rushing. Her saying was if you rush ahead of the others you will be eaten by the tiger. I do not know from where she got it, but it was very effective in controlling our behaviour among the siblings? As I moved to the university there were many more of them such as the one on queues, that the queue you are in moves slower. Not exactly a theorem, but true nevertheless. Mathematics can be exciting accompaniment of life even if detested by most of us.
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