Playing Cricket, Playing Maths
Those days were really special. Those were the school days. ["Those were the best days of my life!"] We tried so many things! We crunched our minds. We committed stuff to our memory and vomited that same stuff onto the exam paper. We read history, geography. We did our PT (Phyical Training). We did our homework. We scampered through our classwork. Our handiwork was neat. Those paper-cuttings, those pasting, were properly done. Those paint-brushes, those pastels were nicely used. But, we were -- at least some of us were -- not so good at Mathematics at the start. There used to be "silly mistakes" like the "unforced errors", that would cost us two or three marks. Those paltry two or three would add up to become ten or twenty. Alas! Then the world around would simply shatter - that dreamworld made of three hundred and sixty five days. Marks below eighty is logically unacceptable - for, you have it in you or not, you must be a genuine mathematician. If you cannot solve Arithmetic of fifth standard, how can you learn Algebra ? If the Algebra is not grasped well, how will your analytic base be formed ? If the ...... is not done, how will you become a ......?
So, what to do ? What could be done ? That leads to - what was done ? We were extremely good at Cricket - all Indians, by nature, are. There is nothing special in it. A subject of Cricket in school curriculum would have done wonders to our fortune. Those that could hit the ball wanted to become Mark Greatbatch. Those that could bowl fast would dream of becoming Curtley Ambrose. Those that could spin the ball would like to see himself as Anil Kumble. Those, like me, who wanted to observe the game, would like to become an Umpire. Seriously - umpires like me were in great demand in those days! Regardless of the role we would play on the field, we would all be the same kind when we indulged ourselves in Book Cricket.
This Book Cricket thing was a phenomenon at that time. I sincerely hope that it has not lost its sheen even today. At least this Wiki page confirms this and gives me immense satisfaction :
Book Cricket
Thanks to the inventor of this marvelous game, he or she made the rules very simple. You just need to flip the page of a book and you will score. Or, you just get out. If the page number ends with a zero in the rightmost digit, you are gone. You are either caught in the deep, or played on, or stumped, or bowled, whatever you like.
The catch is not so much in the rules of this "no-brainer" game. The catch lies beyond this. At the start, you note the runs down for a player and when he gets out, you add the runs to get his total. But then, the excitement, the thrust, the passion takes you a long way to make you an Arithmetic super-hero. In the fury of a make or a break, you start adding runs without taking help of the boring pen or paper. You add four plus six, plus one, plus four, plus two, and, you continue. You continue to add and store in your head. You are the MR, the MC, the CE, the "+"; in short, you are the mini calculator.
Long hours we spent adding up numbers. There was no room for a mistake, a single run missed could cost one game. A careful pair of eyes and an effective brain would toil and keep on toiling to add up, only add up! Addition sharpened the skills to subtract and then to multiply and finally to divide. If such is the charisma of a rather numb game, questions can definitely be raised about its numbness.
I mean, how could one ignore the fact that we ended up having the whole "addition world" at our control! That game gave us a right to play with Mathematics. Mathematics and its younger son Arithmetic were no longer our enemy. We could boastfully tell to our mother "You need not bring that glass of milk to improve my analytic skills; I have it improved." We could tell her not to divulge this secret to the neighbors. We could confidently ask her to wait for the next annual exam. We could clearly see our destiny shinning and waiting to meet us!
Cricket-fully mathematical anecdote ends here.
So, what to do ? What could be done ? That leads to - what was done ? We were extremely good at Cricket - all Indians, by nature, are. There is nothing special in it. A subject of Cricket in school curriculum would have done wonders to our fortune. Those that could hit the ball wanted to become Mark Greatbatch. Those that could bowl fast would dream of becoming Curtley Ambrose. Those that could spin the ball would like to see himself as Anil Kumble. Those, like me, who wanted to observe the game, would like to become an Umpire. Seriously - umpires like me were in great demand in those days! Regardless of the role we would play on the field, we would all be the same kind when we indulged ourselves in Book Cricket.
This Book Cricket thing was a phenomenon at that time. I sincerely hope that it has not lost its sheen even today. At least this Wiki page confirms this and gives me immense satisfaction :
Book Cricket
Thanks to the inventor of this marvelous game, he or she made the rules very simple. You just need to flip the page of a book and you will score. Or, you just get out. If the page number ends with a zero in the rightmost digit, you are gone. You are either caught in the deep, or played on, or stumped, or bowled, whatever you like.
The catch is not so much in the rules of this "no-brainer" game. The catch lies beyond this. At the start, you note the runs down for a player and when he gets out, you add the runs to get his total. But then, the excitement, the thrust, the passion takes you a long way to make you an Arithmetic super-hero. In the fury of a make or a break, you start adding runs without taking help of the boring pen or paper. You add four plus six, plus one, plus four, plus two, and, you continue. You continue to add and store in your head. You are the MR, the MC, the CE, the "+"; in short, you are the mini calculator.
Long hours we spent adding up numbers. There was no room for a mistake, a single run missed could cost one game. A careful pair of eyes and an effective brain would toil and keep on toiling to add up, only add up! Addition sharpened the skills to subtract and then to multiply and finally to divide. If such is the charisma of a rather numb game, questions can definitely be raised about its numbness.
I mean, how could one ignore the fact that we ended up having the whole "addition world" at our control! That game gave us a right to play with Mathematics. Mathematics and its younger son Arithmetic were no longer our enemy. We could boastfully tell to our mother "You need not bring that glass of milk to improve my analytic skills; I have it improved." We could tell her not to divulge this secret to the neighbors. We could confidently ask her to wait for the next annual exam. We could clearly see our destiny shinning and waiting to meet us!
Cricket-fully mathematical anecdote ends here.
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