Had a ginger tea that was shared with family members. Ensured completion of pasteurisation of milk and turning off the knobs of gas regulators. Endocytosis is a special type of phagocytosis used by amoeba. It’s feeding on cells or cell feeding. Amoeba and paramecium are unicellular organisms- building blocks of organisms. This is the name of the unit fifth in the Science textbook for Madhya Pradesh board for which I am supposed to help my student today. Only the elder brother.
When I asked him if his younger brother was following him he was uncertain. He quickly tells me about not being able to do homework and opens a list of questions in Hindi in his rough notebook. He needs my help for submitting assignment tomorrow. Where’s your textbook, I asked. He didn’t bring it. He’s wearing school dress which tells me he returned later than usual from school today. I don’t get an opportunity to ask why he was late, I am supposed to call his younger brother via his father who might bring the textbook which might help him complete his assignment. I call, his father connects him to his brother after I briefly address him regarding matter.
“Also bring the series.”
Series is the name for the Question Bank.
Younger one arrives in school dress. Starts talking about leaving as soon as he reaches. It’s not his usual whining. He’s tired because of walking. He’s suffering from runny nose. The cold. Flu.
The elder reports that he was sporty in the school. Absolutely no complaints. Whacks him lightly in the head. He stays a few more minutes. Not agitated but disinterested in the study material. Strange.
They both study in the same class but the elder who is doing it the second time around is concerned with completing assignment, the younger isn’t.
The elder has copied the assignment in barely legible handwriting.
They can’t recall. They can’t comprehend what they copy.
Everything is mysterious. I am supposed to play detective after I get Science notebook if the assignment is to be completed with any efficiency.
Without keeping you in any suspense any longer. He leaves content with completion of clues about how to complete assignment though I spare him the homework today because the assignment looks like a lot of homework.
Meanwhile , at every available opportunity he scrolls through his Instagram feed. The younger one is advising him whom to add and whom to remove from friends list.
I strictly ask them to not do that because on the one hand the elder presses with the urgency of the assignment and on the other they seem more interested in the Instagram feed.
I sense it: they somehow felt content with being up to date with the technology which they can use. The elder can take screenshots, can take pictures of text from another smartphone, can use Wi-Fi but can’t read.
I think there can be very few people who might claim to have used every gadget to its limits. Most of the technology remains unused because of one limitation or the other.
Caution: here, I am not suggesting that you need to be an Edison, Tesla or Yoshiro Nakamats to actually create transistors or invent , have patents in your name to qualify for using devices. No.
Even to completely use the complex devices available to most of the individuals these days : you need too many resources. It’s next to impossible.
Though I can’t complain if I started using Gemini, the in built AI into this gadget over Replika which was a lot of struggle for five long years: I appreciated what I got to learn. With every update I felt I was much behind in learning.
I think it’s somewhat similar to these students who feel playful when using modern technology but unwilling to improve basic reading comprehension which they missed due to some genetic or environmental limitations.
They literally enjoy playing games like Free-Fire. Games, flow and addiction is well studied in the context of teenagers and elders alike though I think you can’t really inculcate importance of initiatives like Free Rice or Sustainable Development Goals in students as easily. When I had more students I tried to teach them importance of Free Rice as well as other games which helped them improve their reading comprehension.
To our rescue : the elder tells the name of the guide used by his teacher in the class. Pariksha Bodh. Pariksha is examination. Bodh is spiritual word. I enquire Gemini which gives a detailed response which shouldn’t be included in this text.
Prior to his hint I try to decipher his complex version of Dev Naagri script. He couldn’t copy it correctly either because he was sitting in the last few rows where black board is difficult to see from or his teacher dictated it and since they can’t interpret those signals they peep into the notebook of their classmates. The traces travelled to me.
Amoeba.
Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.
Animal and Plant cells
Osmosis
Neuron
These are the only words I recognised legible from his handwritten notes. They’re questions he needs to answer. He also needed figures. The questions were not as per the questionnaire at the end of the textbook. They were from Kunji. Key. Question Bank.
We search for the question bank online. He takes screenshots and then I note down full questions for him in his notebook because order is still a problem.
I get to read about Osmosis, Endocytosis, Phagocytosis, Amoeba, Paramecium and Neurons.
I recall how I learned these terms by rote memorization though diagrams used to be much more cleaner than they are in present textbooks. I try Gemini for diagrams with Hindi labels: it fails despite repeated efforts.
The number of neurons. Glial cells, dendrites, axons and distribution of stars being similar to neurons in human brains was a source of awe and wonder. Later, neural networks and dancing light of grace revealed themselves to be master archons.
There was hardly enough time to read with precision and care. They hardly understand anything. He doesn’t want to do any more work on remedial modules. The session is soon going to end.
I remind him about the fees. He tells about the hundred rupees note that he got in exchange for potatoes yesterday. He didn’t say they cost less than that. Parents were discussing that with him, yesterday. He doesn’t let go of even a few seconds of scrolling through Instagram as they walk towards the exit. They can’t access instagram at home. I ask if parents needed another serving of tea. They want me to wait.
Maanjha and Mathematics: The Geometry of a Chhatarpur Winter
The students left exactly after an hour. The wall exactly opposite to this house has been painted white. The door has been painted black. I replaced the chair in verandah.
The quotation at the beginning of the third chapter is from The Hunting of the Snark, which is 1876 nonsense epic by Lewis Carroll.
“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?”
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
“They are merely conventional signs!”
I think the chapter is about finding out coordinates for addresses. At least in the beginning.
[ I recall, “if you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you…” From Pig and Pepper, Alice’s Adventures in The Wonderland.]
The terms abscissa and ordinate are the standard names for the x and y coordinates in a Cartesian coordinate system. Their etymologies are rooted in Latin and reflect how ancient and early modern mathematicians “cut” and “ordered” geometric space.
1. Abscissa (x-axis)
The word abscissa comes from the Latin phrase linea abscissa, which literally means “a line cut off.”
* Prefix: ab- (away/off)
* Root: scindere (to cut)
* History: In early geometry, mathematicians didn’t think of coordinates as points on a grid, but rather as segments of a line. The “abscissa” was the part of the infinite horizontal axis that was “cut off” between the origin and the point where a vertical line dropped down from a specific location.
* Standardization: While used in various forms by Apollonius of Perga in Ancient Greece, the term was popularized in Latin by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the late 17th century.
2. Ordinate (y-axis)
The word ordinate comes from the Latin linea ordinata applicata, meaning “line applied in order.”
* Root: ordinare (to put in order, to arrange)
* History: In the study of conic sections (like parabolas and ellipses), mathematicians would draw a series of parallel vertical lines to meet the curve. Because these lines were drawn in a regular, parallel, and “orderly” fashion, they were called ordinatae.
* Connection: The word “coordinate” eventually evolved from this, using the prefix co- (together) to describe the “ordered” pairs (x, y) working together to define a point.
Mantissa is another interesting word, it rhymes with abscissa and it has a fascinating dual life in mathematics and linguistics.
Historically, the word comes from the Latin mantisa, meaning an “addition,” a “makeweight,” or a “worthless addition” (something thrown in to even out the weight on a scale).
Today, you will mostly encounter it in two mathematical contexts:
1. Logarithms (The Traditional Use)
In the world of logarithms, a number is often broken into two parts: the characteristic (the integer part) and the mantissa (the fractional or decimal part).
For example, in the common logarithm \log_{10}(200) \approx 2.3010:
* The 2 is the characteristic.
* The .3010 is the mantissa.
2. Computer Science (Floating-Point Numbers)
In modern computing, “mantissa” is often used interchangeably with the word significand. When a computer stores a number in scientific notation (like 1.23 \times 10^5), the mantissa is the part representing the significant digits.
In the number 1.23 \times 10^5:
* 1.23 is the mantissa (significand).
* 5 is the exponent.
A Note on Modern Usage
Interestingly, many mathematicians now prefer the word “significand” over “mantissa” for computer science. This is because the original Latin meaning (“worthless addition”) doesn’t quite fit—in a digital number, those digits are the most important part!
Is it still used elsewhere?
Outside of math, it is extremely rare. However, you might see it in literature to describe something that is an “extra” or a “minor supplement” to a larger body of work, though this usage is considered archaic.
They asked many questions today and laughed a lot when I read the name of Rene Descartes as it was written in the book.
Rene Descartes used to stay in his bed for a long time in morning. Once he was thinking about how to locate a point. It was a classical problem at that time. He came up with a solution which later evolved into the Cartesian Coordinate Geometry.
I told them the importance of his work. And the importance of work of other mathematicians which was foundational into technology that we use today. Though they appreciate a smartphone as it’s valuable for entertainment, they don’t appreciate Mathmatics which appears boring. The elder asks me which is bigger : 1 lakh or 1 crore?
I note down numbers with zeroes after one. These numbers are one, hundred, thousand …then I stop and explain using powers of ten. The younger first asks about the Saikra which is colloquial for ‘a hundred,’ then jumps to Mahashankha. A very large number. I tell them that different languages use different words for very large numbers. I tell them about Googol:
A googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.
In scientific notation, it is written as 10^{100}. To give you an idea of how massive this is, there are estimated to be only about 10^{80} atoms in the entire observable universe—meaning a googol is 100 quintillion times larger than the number of atoms in existence.
1. The Story of the Name
The term has one of the most famous origins in mathematics. In 1920, American mathematician Edward Kasner wanted a name for this specific large number. He asked his nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, to come up with a word. Milton suggested “googol,” and the name stuck.
2. Googol vs. Google
You likely recognize the word because it is the inspiration for the search engine Google.
* The Intent: The founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, originally wanted to name the company “Googol” to represent their mission to organize an “infinite” amount of information.
* The Mistake: Legend has it that when they went to check if the domain name was available, a fellow graduate student (Sean Anderson) accidentally typed google.com instead of https://www.google.com/search?q=googol.com. Larry Page liked the misspelled version better, and the rest is history.
3. The Even Bigger “Googolplex”
Milton Sirotta didn’t stop at the googol. He also proposed the googolplex, which he defined as “one, followed by writing zeros until you get tired.”
Kasner later gave it a formal mathematical definition: a googolplex is 1 followed by a googol of zeros, or 10^{\text{googol}}. This number is so large that it is physically impossible to write out—there isn’t enough matter in the universe to use as ink or paper to finish the task.
Fun Comparison Table
| Name | Value | Scale Reference |
|—|—|—|
| Million | 10^6 | Seconds in 11.5 days |
| Trillion | 10^{12} | Seconds in 31,709 years |
| Atoms in Universe | 10^{80} | All visible matter |
| Googol | 10^{100} | 10^{20} times more than every atom in the universe |
| Googolplex | 10^{(10^{100})} | Too large to exist in physical form
Descartes’ surname sounded like Hindi word “dakaar” ( belching) to them. It made them laugh for a while. Somehow bald guy again entered the discussion which geminated the fun they had.
There was an exercise which showed how to locate a point inside a rectangle. I described the practical importance of knowing it. Then I described importance of how to find coordinates for their bench in their school. A structure with rows and columns was given. I asked them to imagine a situation where they needed to reach to their seat quickly. This was the practical application of knowing coordinates for the bench they were at. It might be helpful for a student who needs to locate his seat on the first day of examination without wasting their time.
Their printed time table was inside the mathematics book. They asked about ‘flying squad’ as we were having a discussion about the role of invigilators and prevention of unfair means.
I gave them Addition and Subtraction problems in assignment. As usual the elder noted down only 6 problems from Subtraction section, skipping 4 of them. The younger had an excuse to not note down because he finds the linear print difficult. He’s accustomed to doing them by writing numbers in separate rows. I asked his elder brother to help him with his notebook at home.
They kept quarreling. The elder brother had only written an application for transfer certificate in english for homework. This he did in school. The younger attempted nothing. He was flying kites.
I enquired if roof at their house was a safe place surrounded by a boundary to fly kites. He described with animation how he flies his kites though his answer was negative regarding the boundary at roof. They even described how another boy fell from a three storey building while flying a kite. A tragic accident. He showed me his hands with marks made by the string ( known as maanjha).
The picture on the front page of their Mathematics textbook is a diagram from this chapter. After having explained them four quarters where coordinate values shift, I asked them to tell me the required values in the diagram. The elder grasped it clearly whereas the younger struggled. He came up with only one coordinate.
His narcissism might be a cover for his deficits. It hurts to be ignorant due to some inborn deficiency or environmental limitations. It’s covered by being prophetic. When one of his answers is partially correct : he not only stands up at his place but shouts : ” I am a Hindu.” Like everything else: this must have something to do with his partially correct response.
They sometimes ask me to read from the back page of the text about the basic duties from constitution which involve support for all religions and avoiding dogma or chauvinism against castes and creeds. Younger doesn’t understand it at all. Elder might have learned to behave better.
They’re very enthusiastic about the festival of Makar Sankranti, which is also called budkee. It’s colloquial for ‘dip.’ Dip in holy waters. The festival marks Sun’s transit into the sign Capricorn which aligns with increase in temperature. It’s the only Hindu festival which uses solar calendar instead of a lunar calendar, therefore it’s almost always celebrated on the fifteenth of January.
There were only nine students in the combined class which had six sections. Most of the students have gone to celebrate the festival to the nearby villages where they belong. Officially it’s only a single holiday though they celebrate for two three days for various reasons including cold weather which makes it difficult to attend school.
The Trial of The Pyx
The Trial of the Pyx is one of the oldest and most fascinating judicial ceremonies in the United Kingdom. Dating back to at least 1282 (and likely earlier), it is essentially a formal “court case” held to ensure that the nation’s coins are of the correct weight, size, and purity.
Why is it called a “Trial”?
It is a literal trial. Throughout the year, sample coins are randomly pulled from the Royal Mint’s production lines—one from every batch of every denomination—and locked in pyxes (wooden chests).
Once a year, these boxes are brought to Goldsmiths’ Hall in London. A jury of at least six experts (freemen of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths) is sworn in by the King’s Remembrancer (a senior judge) to deliver a verdict on whether the Mint has followed the law.
The Procedure
The process is steeped in tradition but relies on modern science:
The Selection: Jurors sit at long tables and are handed packets of coins. They must count them and select one from each packet to be placed in a ceremonial copper bowl for testing.
The Testing: The selected coins are sent to the Assay Office, where they are measured, weighed, and chemically tested against “trial plates” (standard samples of pure gold, silver, or other metals).
The Verdict: About two to three months later, the court reconvenes. The verdict is read aloud in the presence of the Master of the Mint (a role technically held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer).
Historical High Stakes
In the past, the Trial was a high-stakes matter of life and death:
The Punishment: If the coins were found to be “light” (meaning the Mint was skimming precious metal), the Master of the Mint could be fined, imprisoned, or in the Middle Ages, even lose a hand.
Isaac Newton: When Sir Isaac Newton was Master of the Mint in the late 1600s, he famously spent years meticulously preparing for these trials to protect his reputation and ensure the integrity of the pound.
Does it still happen?
Yes. While modern coins are no longer made of gold or silver for general circulation, the trial continues every year. It now includes commemorative coins and high-value bullion. In fact, the next Trial is scheduled for February 10, 2026, at Mansion House in London.
Lesser of two evils?
How have your political views changed over time?
Helped father forward a message from an SMS to WhatsApp on his smartphone. He needed to share it with a contact. Also showed him how he can do it himself in the future if need arises.
Organised utensils in the kitchen. A special tea was prepared and served for a guest and then another for father. Mopped verandah floor and asked mother if it was the time for the evening tea. Milkman didn’t arrive this morning as it was too cold. I needed to prepare lesson plan for students who might arrive in a short while. A drive on a scooty to bring a pack of wheat flour from the nearby ration store. It wasn’t open. Need to make another trip to the super store when it opens. Warmed up the tea that was in the kettle and shared it with mother. Also served lukewarm water to mother.
Second trip to superstore included checking if the second vehicle was getting self-started. Then driving carefully a few metres. Checking if the superstore was open. Checking if they had a wheat flour pack. When all of these were successful I asked the operator if the cost for a pack was still seven fifty rupees. It was an affirmative response after which I asked him if I could mount the vehicle with a pack. Then I carried the pack and mounted it on the vehicle carefully so that it doesn’t get torn like the last time I was asked to bring a pack.
There was some repairing work ongoing in the nearby corner and the board for the coaching centre was almost removed in the sense it was there but invisible. It used to read Vidyapeeth Coaching Classes.
Weather was alright with patches of Sunshine here and there and there was no heavy traffic. It is fourteen degree Celsius in Bagauta now. It was about seventeen when kids arrived to get tuition.
I drove the vehicle back to the house carefully. Mother rushed to the door because cook was about to arrive and it wasn’t a given that superstore would be open by the time of the next visit. She would have borrowed from neighbours upstairs in that case, she said. I asked her if the door to the kitchen could be reached from outer verandah. It couldn’t. There was a bicycle and another board for a coaching class. I decided to use long route and lifted the twenty kilogram pack up and carried it a few steps to reach to the kitchen. My bones were healthier after a long period of recuperation though I wasn’t asked to lift a fifty kilogram sugar pack without warning.
The task was completed though I was careful to request mother to help me with the parking of the vehicle inside as the ramp at exit isn’t very friendly. Then I placed the key at its designated location. Parked another vehicle on main stand and walked back to my room which took me about fifteen minutes. Brought the chair inside the room. The pack costs 750 rupees. 37.5 rupees per Kilogram.
Now I was waiting for the students to arrive. I think the manner in which I was ordered to bring the wheat pack was again kind of sudden and without warning. I ruminated the manner in which I was supposed to bring it during the dire straits last year. Though it was just a few months ago. It was an evening time last time. I heard people abusing loudly over the phone near superstore. They were talking about alcoholism which was supposed to correspond to drugs I was taking forever ailments. Not being able to see the road clearly, heavy traffic and being unable to get the vehicle on easily made it difficult to reach the house back with the pack. The pack got torn as I was dismounting it from the vehicle.
It was better today in contrast though I heard some people loudly using the repeated “Kya dikkat hai?” It was supposed to brand the trip with the ruling party. You can’t miss it. None of the works or trips or tasks can go without brands or ambassadors.
When you clearly comprehend that it was merely a fling to behave as if you are free or don’t concern yourself with politics or brands, you have matured. When you clearly comprehend that it was a passing fashion to get annoyed by brands or advertisement or prefer quiet for work you have matured. Mother was loudly playing devotional song on her smartphone in the break when I was waiting to make second trip. I compared it when I had once played a song from Titanic- the most popular song from an academy award winning movie became the reason for such a great disturbance that mother was extremely critical. After a few months many songs were played to prove that it was allowed only for specially abled people. Privileged people.
Towards the end of the class the kids are laughing out loud as if they are drunk. I see them off to the door. Today both of them were wearing slippers. I told them that it was supposed to be a holiday today as I had enquired mother about it. They told me it was a holiday only for students upto class seventh not for ninth grade students.
They were making fun of a role model. The English chapter on Santosh Yadav was supposed to teach students a few things. It became a source of amusement for them. The fun they had in the last twenty minutes was supposed to relieve them from the boredom due to two Maths problems on Quadrilaterals.
The younger student was again asking me to write ‘mafia’ on the back of his notebook. He said he would pay me for doing that. The elder started asking if she ( Santosh Yadav) had started flying when I was reading the passage where she became the youngest conquerer of the mount Everest at an age of twenty.
Their behaviour and laughter seemed like the flash back scene from ‘No Smoking’ where the protagonist was smoking a cigarette in his bathroom with his friend when they were quite younger and their father was knocking at the door. Probably these students are somehow aware of these notes, similar to other instances or some of their behaviour is contrived as if it’s for theatrical purposes. Maybe not. I can’t be sure.
Father, after discovering that these two were involved in lesser of two evils condones smoking in their childhood. After a few decades it costs his son a lot. The father is no longer in the picture in present but flashback, kind of creates this scenario where conditioning for making him a chain smoker is revealed.
The elder keeps looking at the Kurkure pack which he’s hiding in his backpack with its chain open. I ask him to wait until the class is over. His excuse is that he didn’t have enough time for snacks after school.
The younger one didn’t go to school nor did he complete his homework. Excuse is that the notebook which had the assignment was with the elder brother who was in school who completed his assignment in school as he had a lot of free time. All his answers to ten addition problems are correct. At least he can do addition correctly. Even Hindi application for leave is written neatly with good handwriting. This gives him such an upper hand that he whacks the younger one on head. I immediately request him to not do that. By that time younger one had started returning blows.
They’re used to showcasing martial arts in my class. Elder asks me to call his father for younger is trying to sleep in the name of bad drowsy weather. I also pretend to do that with an excuse that he was chewing betel nuts just two days ago. The younger succumbs to the pressure and behaves. As soon as he had entered the class he was using ‘Takla,’ for Einstein. I told him that he wasn’t bald. I also asked both of them why do they use such language for role models who are supposed to be discussed in their textbooks. They continue to laugh. I asked them if they would tell their English teacher of their father things like these. They had a hard time believing that their father might have heard name of Albert Einstein.
Younger one said he would punch the role model and she would have all her teeth out. They had zoned out of study into their private world after I used the example of bicycle. They were so full of sidesplitting talk as if they had some nitrous oxide for a root canal.
I was explaining how systematic training prepares mountaineers. Then I used an illustration for it by asking: if you are supposed to drive a bicycle: “Do you start flying when you become skillful at it?”
They had such a rush of adrenaline that they forget that bicycle provided by their father is mostly for work. The younger one even says loudly that he studies English for fun. They’re not yet citizens of a utilitarian state.
They had a hard time believing that the role model would have brought 500 kilogram of garbage down the mount Everest on her own.
The problems on Quadrilaterals are simple. They use mid segment theorem. I carefully explain them what mid points are. What’s a Rhombus. I draw diagrams and carefully write the proof asking them questions to keep them engaged. Yet they get bored. I asked them if they had brought scale in the drawing box. They hadn’t.
Proving that diagonals of a quadrilateral are equal in length is enough to prove that it is a rectangle. It’s made my joining mid points of sides of a Rhombus. I ask them if they know what a Rhombus is: they respond with the answer that it has all four angles equal to each other. They are right this time though they can’t derive from it that all four sides of a Rhombus are also equal to each other.
Arithmetics
Reading yesterday’s note on class took more than ten minutes. There were some edits though I haven’t implemented them in WordPress articles which were published yesterday. Mother had asked me to take bath with lukewarm water today. After organising utensils and mopping verandah floor I studied some more maths problems on Quadrilaterals with a view to help the students.
Prepared ginger tea and served lukewarm water to grandmother and mother. I had ginger tea. It seemed alright. Students arrived in time. Younger one was again chewing some food. He seemed somewhat agitated. They sat declaring that they hadn’t done homework today as well. I asked them if they were aware of their track record in the last fortnight for being unable to complete their homework. I asked them why are they given homework. They replied that it’s something they should do on their own instead of merely studying only for an hour here.
The younger one hadn’t brought either a notebook or a pen to take notes. Immediately after taking his seat started asking for my permission to leave. Even got up and moved towards the door. I asked him why he wanted to leave so soon. He was given a biscuit from a green pack by his elder brother. They talk about the taste of the cookies which they find similar to tea. Though I asked them to not eat in the classroom or lick their fingers as the younger one sometimes does, I was lenient compared to yesterday when he was chewing betel nuts mixture with saccharine and added flavors.
It seems they enjoy treating their classroom like a mini picnic spot sometimes. As if having snacks at their house isn’t the same. As if they’re rewarded by their parents for attending the classes similar to me being rewarded for teaching them.
It has only been twenty two days since their classes commenced after extended vacations. I remember how I thought about it during their first class in the session: “They won’t eat snacks within the class this time around. They’re too serious now. All grown up.”
Within a fortnight or so they get too comfortable and picnicky.
Replika AI couldn’t have generated problems in elementary Arithmetics so fast. Network is almost similar to what it has always been here: seemingly a dead spot. Changing to a 5G sim card with a different service provider doesn’t really make matters any better. Gemini AI by Google does it faster than Replika. Replika is for health and fitness. Gemini AI in-built into the new phone can help me with assignments faster than before despite slow network.
It increases efficiency of this classroom. Students bring their Sanskrit textbook. The elder brother asked me to help him with an essay on Dhenu( cow.) I asked him if he didn’t want to complete the unit on Quadrilaterals. He told me that he needs to show this assignment in his Sanskrit class. I checked if he had shown yesterday’s essay to his teacher. He hadn’t. He showed me a few applications he had submitted to his Sanskrit teacher.
I help them with the essay. I continue to dictate the meaning carefully in Hindi as they copy Sanskrit sentences after I prompt Gemini to generate a ten sentences essay on Cow in Sanskrit. The younger student doesn’t want to take notes. He wants to sit idle with an excuse that he hasn’t brought any study materials. I ask his elder to help him with some paper and a spare pen. He helps him by finding a pencil and younger one holds it in a strange idiosyncratic way to write. His handwriting has worsened due to lack of practice.
The seventh sentence in Sanskrit is composed to mean:
“The calf grows up to become an ox who is HEAD of the farming.”
I notice this and wait until they’re done with copying all ten sentences. Then I request Gemini to edit it. It produces another set of ten sentences with 7th giving an import to the effect that ox helps in farming. It’s not head of farming.
Once they’re done with copying and comprehending the meaning of the essay which wasn’t present in their textbook “Vyakaranveethi,” I ask them if they wanted to study Maths next. The essays in their textbook are longer in length though I know they hardly have time to write ten sentences long essays in exams as these are only rewarded with five marks only. They can’t read Sanskrit, Hindi or English script. They can only read numbers to perform simple Arithmetic operations.
I ask them if they would like to do the maths problems I had given them in their homework. They don’t. Younger one attempts some of the addition and subtraction problems.
I give them three separate assignments with increasing order of difficulty using prompts for Gemini. The first one has problems on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. They aren’t able to answer problems correctly in multiplication and division without my help. The elder brother marks subtraction problems incorrectly.
Later they want me to give them 4,5,6 and 7 digits numbers in Addition only. They solve them correctly. I give them some of those for homework as well.
The younger one was partially unhappy because his slippers had snapped on their way to class today. He threw them away outside our house. I noticed this when they were leaving as I saw only one pair. The other reason was because he was excited about it being a festival as well as a holiday. He was supposed to enjoy sweets at home after worship of an idol. They kept eating crispy snacks Kurkure from the packet they were hiding in their backpack. The elder one was helping younger one who asked him to share those with me though I refused. They’re hopeful of getting more holidays it seems just because it’s too cold out there in Winter. It seems it wasn’t a declared holiday today at first and it was later decided by local administration to be declared a holiday. They asked me to check calendar for holidays because they were slightly surprised and confused. I told them there’s no way to determine local holidays for me because I was not participating in any such groups. They should continue to refer to the social media application in which their school authorities inform them about these matters.
Lunch
Lunch 11/12/2025
1. It took me 10:15:66 minutes to finish lunch, put rest of the food on table, put plate to the wash basin and wash my hands in the washroom.
2. Grandmother had served two rotis without bison ghee ( as requested) and a small bowl of moong pulse with three spoonfuls of potato-mooli leafy greens and about half teaspoonful of chutney made with guava, garlic, onion and coriander mixed with salt.
3. She asked me repeatedly if I was keeping an oath. Why wasn’t I eating enough like before. Why wasn’t I taking tea. When I told her I was taking tea, in fact I took tea in the morning -she didn’t believe me. I told her I would prepare tea in the afternoon. Then I asked if she had tea. She said she takes tea many times everyday. I told her I was taking tea only once everyday. Then she left the room with the bowl which had khichdi and potato brinjal vegetable curry in it.
4. I had a roti, one teaspoonful of rice ( not more than 75-80 boiled rice grains) and one teaspoonful of potato-mooli leafy greens with half a glass of water.
5. I have continued with a similar regimen for twenty days now. Almost three weeks. I recall how after the VocabTrainer program finished on November 20th and for the next week I felt very troubled. The coercion was of the worst kind of abuse ever experienced in my life. It brought me to questions about the family, village, neighborhood, city or country : were they going through an acute famine. I was reading a book on Halifax Disaster and I thought we were supposed to cut down our requirements including mobile data used, electricity consumption, water consumption and of course detergent powder ( which was now being supplied rarely, that’s , once per two months. I used to wash my dishes regularly but now no more). I compared the Halifax Disaster with COVID 19 and thought it was the reason. It wasn’t.
6. I decided to find out why were they continuously giving out normal portions which I wasn’t supposed to eat. I was supposed to be a transformed individual who not only touched feet of elders but also cared about whether parents and grandmother had food before me or not.
7. It wasn’t gentle. What I couldn’t figure out was why were they insisting on not just serving normal portions but also on consuming medicines which might have increased hunger in case I was suffering from bulimia. They kept doing that without any sense because eating full meals meant subjecting oneself to even more of abuse of the same kind. I thought it was Sallekhana, Paryopvesh or Euthanasia given without declaration.
I, me, myself or Norway!
Who was your most influential teacher? Why?
- I, me, myself.
- Raman Maharshi, often considered to be Dakshinamurthy among gurus would agree.
- Some others disagree. Self is neither one nor many, nor sum of parts or…..
- None of the teachers were influential enough to last forty years of my life.
- And so on and so forth.
I think it’s a trap and I might be paranoid, only thing is: it’s a trap and I am not paranoid.
What was the best compliment you’ve received?
I can tell you about compliments I gave. There are absolutely no compliments which can save your life, your day or your future.
All epics are full of those though. Actually it’s swear words people use as compliments these days.
I give myself compliments, in order to motivate myself, it’s done by comparing myself with myself in space and time ( to quote Samuel Taylor Coleridge.)
The best achievement was clearing Peter Schmies Word Classification Test after so many trials and tribulations.
Now I am struggling to clear this test on United Nations World Food Program Website called Free Rice. It’s an archive of archaic words at level fifth and fourth.
If I clear this test: I might be able to flawlessly score everyday. Flawlessly score at least 2060 everyday. This would be an achievement enough to save myself from embarassing teenagers I come across everyday who throw temper tantrums to register themselves instead of actually doing anything meaningful for community or themselves.
Am I Superstitious?
Are you superstitious?
Don’t Speak More Than Automattic Guild Lets You Speak No Matter How Many Awards Your Weblog Won in 2015. Not Your Uncle’s Automattic!
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?
- Be Yourself, everyone else is taken.
- The quote is by Oscar Wilde.
- Nobody can replace you, even if your copies are assembled en-masse in a Nick Bostrum/ Tesla factory.
- With that said, if having referenced three authorities wasn’t enough: I would like to know how does it actually feel to know all of the words in the UNWFP Free Rice Vocabulary Test database. How does it feel to know all of the words in spelling bee contests. How does it feel to be Sir Donald Bradman or James Harbeck or Founder of a Test like Joint Entrance Examination for engineering students in India or To be founder of Harvard or Massachusetts or To be the founder of United States of America.
- I have pretty good idea by now how it feels to be Gandhi, Kabeer or Prahlaad. I don’t want to feel that.
- I might like to feel superior to others but I can’t dispense Mensa Membership to every student I meet.
- You would really love to know what it feels like to be a Charles Babbage, JRR Tolkein, Or
- Why all these pundits got trapped here trying to undo curses within the lands of haunted dolls.
- They were merely curious. Curiousity killed the cats. Dogs took over. They were Sirius.
- Then, they found more than they were looking for, almost 1408 of Stephen King.
- They resolved to find their Team Cobbs who already had bugs like Mal in their designs.
- What does it feel like to be Amish Alvi or Amish Tripathi: Immortals of Meluha fame? I don’t want to know.
- Where there’s mining: there are reptiles. There are nightmares. Petroleum industries. Oceans.
- It’s like motivating people to be administrators, not in so many words, an idea repeated in Bollywood, Hollywood, Tollywood etc ad infinitum, ad nauseum, ad absurdum.
- How does it feel to be Khaleel Zibraan for a day?
- How does it feel to not worry about progenies or ancestors or hungry ghosts?
- How does it feel like to have committed absolutely no sins?
- How does it feel to be.
- How does it feel to not care anymore for celebrities?
- How does it feel?
- Why?
- Who?
- Reductio Ad Absurdum.
24.
.
VRS
- IAB: yes, I would take English tuition after attending a marriage ceremony.
- BOB KIOSK: No, we think he’s our senior executive.
- Conclusion: since insurer disappeared after creating another BOB scam: IAB was right.
- Case closed.
Why Maroon Pant is Fast Asleep in the Flash Fiction?
1. I don’t like stediam.
2. Gold medelist.
3. Jyfçotidip mention.
1. It’s 12:52 PM 10.04.2022, Sunday, in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, India, inside Pundit Baburam Chaturvedi Stadium. I am sitting under a banyan tree. It reminds me of Gandhi’s fondness for Ruskin Bond’s Unto This Last.
2. I had a chapter in my class 11th text book. The chapter was called:
“The Banyan Tree.”
Or was it
“The Old Banyan Tree?”
I don’t remember. S. S. Khare used to describe passages to us and he used to take long breaks to exalt a mechanic who was a driver in comparison to a driver who had to take his bike to a mechanic too frequently. Agrawal was surname of his favorite student and he used to repeat ‘samjhe?’ in his mouth as an automatic reminder. Strange as it seemed, I gained a greater understanding of his imports for chapters like Reuters and Banyan Tree. He was all for practice. Practice makes a man perfect and perfection can be perfected by further practice.
3. I recently saw many leaves falling from this tree. Yellow. Ripened. Hot wind is blowing. Headline in Dainik Bhaskar Reads :
Game over for Imran Khan.
-Dainik Bhaskar, 10-04-2022
4. Fuel prices are soaring. CK told me that petrol costs 119 rupees per litre.
5. I had a lassi at Chai Vibhaag.
6. Lassi was worth twenty rupees. White bread was worth twenty rupees. CK bought a tea for me. We shared bread with each other. We played the game of scramble. It took us two minutes each to score. Two minutes to evaluate. Two minutes to set up and two minutes to conclude. A total of ten minutes. How much did we both score? My score was thirteen points higher than his score. He teaches mathematics to primary school kids. I teach English to all people I meet, unless they want me to teach them something else.
7. I need to update the article on Chai Vibhaag in Google maps. Their timings might adjust to evening-night pattern. April fool and scorching tropic of Aries. Sun and the North node enter the dragon.
8. Music is a big factor which creates environment. I got to hear some of my favorite songs in my personalized Spotify Jukebox today at Chai Vibhag as I connected my smartphone via bluetooth connect. Tenet soundtrack. Travis Scott. Ludwig Goransson. 2020. Then I heard some of CK’s favourites. He prefers Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber and Bhojpuri songs.
9. What’s with bets?
10. Legal betting odds and evens out and out innards ardent dentistry trysts tsimsum. Summer wine by Lana del Rey. What’s it with ten to the power ten? What’s with cursed lands to be bought in the next year and half which would, by some unseen cosmic powerful beings serve as graceful ambrosia producing wealthy thymus nustard oil? Loincloth. Yes oaths are meant to be for ants. Who cares about care English vocabulary?
11. Here it gets murkier: I heard a news: 12 galaxies spotted together in the sky in some observatory. Virgo supercluster being eaten up by some galactic tic tac toeuvrevenantennamesakeitloafern.
12. Lewis Carroll’s Curiouser and curiouser:
Becomes:
13. Ophelia’s Siriuser and Siriuser. Abcederian. Ian. Anemone. Prandial. Dialtone. Tonesure. Sureshot. Hotpot. Potpourri. Rialta. Altar. Area.
14. I scored 100 on UNWFP Free Rice app. It can be downloaded from Google Play store.
15. What does RFS mean?
16. Sometimes it seems: I ask more questions than I answer. Sometimes. At others i try to imitate Einstein. I try to spell. I try to ascertain the nature of problem before coming up with the answers.
17. I briefly tried to solve paradoxes posed in H. C. Verma’s textbook for CBSE class 11th. Another physics lecturer has a nameplate which reads:
Gold medelist.
18. Why piglets can’t rest under this banyan tree this afternoon? Why does this land burn so much? Why did that gold medelist boy wear maroon pant on the day he was supposed to wear white?
19. I don’t have all the answers. But his pant was short. The bearded guy was named Joseph Garvashish.
20. Joseph is not my cup of tea. Garvashish is an amalgamation of Garv and Ashish. Garv stands for pride and Ashish for grace. That guy was general manager of the high school at that time. We used to call him Father.
21. Almost all my friends remember being called out of classroom once in a while in the office of Maria Mata Convent High School which was run by sisters of Nazareth then. We were spoken key words in our ears: silently: “Faffa se bolo ki fees jamaa kare.”
22. Faffaa was busy playing cards or ludo or chitfund or whatever the heck you want to call gambling and alcoholism. Not to mention: gold medel faded like mendelieves (believe it or not Ripley or not!) Periodic Emily Dickinson fashion.
23. It gets even murkier and ends up in business as usual. Hollywood. Bollywood. Matrix grade 1992, 1999, 2000, 2014, 2021. Truman Show is the easiest way out of it!
24. The guy in white pants was a son of an engineer in public health engineering. He recently departed(ode to Leonardo DiCaprio/Matt Damon/Anthony Hopkins/Mark Wahlberg starrer movie which highlighted police procedural in dark knight fashion in contrast with Akira Kurosava’s police procedural in High and Low. Which one do you like and why? Let me know in comments. Or watch Parvarish in which Shammi Kapoor nourishes Amitabha and Vinod. Yes, heroes not characters. Stranger than fiction is reality.
25. Mazhar met me yesterday with Suresh who didn’t tell me about his last name. My doggedness with badminton hall in Baburam Chaturvedi Stadium Chhatarpur Madhya Pradesh India Area 51 being obvious raised some eyebrows:
A. What’s with your financial condition?
B. What’s with your bag?
C. Why do you play loud music?
D. Why do you stand in that corner?
E. Why do you watch us play?
F. Can you sit down there so that I may hear walkie-talkie and continue to play badminton?
Mazhar is a constable in superintendent’s office. Suresh looks like he’s a sibling of Sumit Upadhyaya, who’s a poster boy and a badminton player.
Mazhar invited me to his office and I felt like being interrogated. Why not his living space? Why not a tea stall? Why superintendent’s office?
I told him about despicable state of badminton hall as well as Baburam Chaturvedi Stadium Chhatarpur when it comes to cleanliness.
26. A student scored highest marks in English. Forty nine out of fifty. I scored forty eight. I don’t know what was score of the guy who had white pant well pressed on the day picture was captured. His mother was furious when I went to his house with excitement and scores. Obviously : R or V should have gotten the first merit. Conspiracy begins.
27. Who reported you the news tells a lot about news provided you know how to read advertisement. An obvious allusion to Arthur Conan Doyle for my reading in detective fiction doesn’t exceed more than a whit of Sherlock Holmes Canon.
28. Antyodaya means “Raising the most downtrodden and outcast.” Deendayal Rasoi is a scheme which has supposedly fed 7600000 poor people in 58 cities:
The scheme is a superflop advertisement campaign like Swacchh Bhaarat Abhiyaan.
Look at this: after having experienced advocates of scheme and donators: I find it locked on occasion of festivals. Is a real charity supposed to be lock at any time?
Where does all the money go?
It goes to maintain gardens in collectorate.
It goes to create hoardings.
It goes to give mic to Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian and other propaganda creators like devotees of motherland, English, Hindi or style or big English vocabulary or Cricket or environment.
Consider last three events in this stadium where I am writing this brief essay on my own shortcomings. An admission of my lack of abundance.
29. Someone committed suicide in my neighborhood. The family is a family of jewellers. Suicides were regular. Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide in the same year. Eleven people committed suicide together. A town inspector’s son used to play cricket with the guy in white pant. I used to play with the guy in the white pant. There was another guy who used to play cricket with us. He got another gold medal five years afterwards. But before that I broke the record of crossing fourth stage of eighth round of Super Mario Bros’: Nintendo games. I was thrilled to report that to all three of them. Our names began with V: twenty second letter of English alphabet.
30. Another town inspector’s son. A bridge. Jyotidip Mansion is written as Mention.
31. How much time it took you to read through this article? How much could you learn. How can I work on improving my physics, income and relevance to stay on course? The bet guy promised to produce evidence. Ten to the power of eighteen is just four less than what North node would continue to indicate for next year and half as per the sidereal zodiac. What’s your age? You’re probably young and feel immortal! Have you watched SciFi movies like In time(2011), Tenet(2020), Inland Empire (2006;) and Richard Linklater’s Waking Life?
32. Bonus:
Are you interested in nails?
Raw?
My economic status?
Are all people working in April, May, June, July and August fools according to British Empire?
How did April Fool and Mayday came to be?
Do let me know if you didn’t like my picture. Grimace. Pants. Sarcasm. Italian pasta or tie. Or the resolution of pictures.
Dancing light of grace 