RIFLE RANGE BOY

Shakuntala Devi (Hindi; 2020) A joke that my friend once told me comes to mind. A child, aged 5, will think that his father is some kind of a superman. He is strong and invincible. At 10, he is still looked up upon. In the teenage years, the relationship sours. By 20, son and father do not see eye-to-eye. Father tries to pave the path with his wisdom, but the son thinks his ways are passé. He soon refers to his father as 'your husband' when talking to his mother about him. He only communicates with his mother and does not engage in any form of conversation with his father. Things just happen in a ritualistic manner. Son gets married, has a child, slowly enjoys parenthood. He soon realises the intricacies of parenting. By 45, he is impressed by his father's ability to juggle work, family life and skill to educate his siblings with his meagre income. By 50 or 55, the son tries to make up for lost times. When the son is 60, the father has passed on, and the son starts prais...

BBC Four: The Story of Maths (2008) Part 1: The Language of the Universe If one were to look at the history of the world, there was never a time there was peace on Earth. At every moment, there was some turmoil somewhere. In spite of all that upheavals, destructions and loss of lives and civilisations, we as a human race, have progressed on the long run. In the time of peace, people start becoming curious about their surroundings and start trying to understand its intricacies. They try to explain its pattern and perhaps try to predict its recurrence. Attacking forces usurp this knowledge as theirs and try to improve this further when the dust settles after their inquests. Slowly, learning from to count numbers with our digits, we developed formulas and managed to calculate unfathomable numbers of gargantuan proportions. Mathematics is said to be the language of the Universe. Marcus De Sautoy, a Mathematician, takes the viewers on a journey of discovery of how Mathematics changed ...

Running on the treadmill can be a daunting task, but it had to be done. Unpredictable working hours and inclement weather make it imperative for one to rely on this monotonous method of training. To ease the task of repetition risking premature retirement, many have devised their own means to beat boredom. I depend on the cable TV. That too sometimes lets me down. Thanks to the tropical weather and highly negatively charged weather clouds, transmission ceases more frequently than it should. I devised my own method to cut my runs into halves and a further half it. Say, I plan to 7kms (~4.2miles) that day. First, I aim to reach half the distance (~2.1miles). Then, I aim for half that distance, another ~1.05miles, then another ~0.5, then ~0.25, then ~0.125 and so on. Before I know it, I am drenched in perspiration and joy for reaching my target. Never in my wildest dream did I think that what I was essentially doing was what Zeno of Elia was trying to tell people around...

Anand Kumar and his students My brother from a different father and mother sent me a mail recently about a certain Mathematics tutor from Patna, Bihar, who would tutor students pro bono for them to pass the coveted Indian Institute of Technology entrance examinations. He hand picks a group of 30, motivates them, arranges hostel facilities, cooks healthy meals and literally drills them day and night to achieve 100% pass rate. The students swarms in from remote and impoverished regions of the land to slog it out for about 7 months with the sole intention of passing the test. A pass, to them, is the panacea of their woes. A rewarding career and perhaps a post in a multinational company or even an overseas posting is a sure way to uplift their living conditions and their immediate loved ones.  The spill over effect can be seen even to the relatives whose background and caste is irrelevant anymore. I can relate to the hopeful eyes of the illiterate parents who put all their ...