MathsLexia...

Once upon a time every child that was born was to be sent to a kingdom called “Studies”.
The truth being that the parents were given an irresistible offer of a healthy life after the visit to Studies.

So, a petite child of 3 yrs, Raji, was sent away everyday to “Studies”. But the kingdom had an underlying rule. Every person who came to Studies had to visit every princely state under its jurisdiction.

So, Raji first walked into the state named “English”. She immediately fell in love with the people there. There were only 26 people. They all mingled with each other to form different groups. Those 26 people immediately registered in Raji’s mind, so she never had a problem understanding what each group meant. All the 26 people pampered Raji. They followed only two traditions, “Grammar” and “Vocabulary”. Which she started to understand well.

One windy afternoon Raji was summoned to visit a far princely state called “MathsLand”. Excited about getting to know more people and traditions she packed her bag and marched into MathsLand. For the first time she was excited because there she met only ten people. Funny people they were, as they spoke a language other than that from in English. But being a dedicated girl she tried to understand their language. During her first visits she was introduced to only 4 customs, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. She happily learnt about them.

But the truth was however hard she tried; she could not comprehend their language.
She smelled trouble one fine day. A new clan of 9 people had come to live in Mathsland. The trouble was they looked exactly the same as the original 9 people but had exactly opposite traits. She kept getting confused as to who was who The clan called itself “negative numbers”. They spoke a slightly different language than the positive clan. This was when Raji realized that it was going to spell doom for her.

The inclusion of the new people led to many changes in the 4 traditions to accommodate the traits of negative clan. Raji was left dumbfounded. She began attending carefully all the traditions. But when people of the opposite clan came together in one, she started getting confused. That was the start of Raji’s woes in Mathsland.

The “numbers”, as the people fondly called themselves, believed in innovation. Raji found it difficult to keep up with them. They kept introducing her to new clans. She met clan called brackets.

The different clans led to casteism. In order to survive she had to keep in mind the order of importance of every caste before performing any tradition. Brackets enjoyed the highest priority. Gradually Raji started loosing interest.
Visitng English land was her get away to happiness. But she had to keep coming back to Mathsland.

Every time she revisited they would have introduced another new custom, which she had to adhere too. She had to follow algebra, arithmetic, and geometry. She believed in Geometry a lot. But all other customs were imposed upon her. Arithmacy was the worse. It had too many rituals that she could not comprehend. Speed, time, distance, work, people, percentage etc.
Sobbing in her bed, she decided to stop visiting MathsLand. But she was struck with horror when she read the fine print in the pact with Studies, she would never be able to leave Studies till she was aware of all the customs in every princely state.

For 22 years she was tormented, tortured whenever she visited MathsLand. But she dragged along to serve the pact with Studies.
The impact was so horrendous that the petite girl always remained that way. Petite!
The sun rose and happiness bloomed one beautiful morning when the pact was coming to an end.
She had enjoyed her stay in Studies though. Although Mathsland tortured her but all other states treated her with care and love.
She was tempted by an offer from Studies that by serving Studies for another few years she could live a more happy life.
For a few days she gave in to the temptation. But then the fear of MathsLand was so deeply etched in her mind that she never came to terms with extending the pact.

2005 was the end of that pact.
Raji lived happily everafter.

After watching TZP happy realization struck me – I might have (or rather I still possibly) suffer from Mathslexia!!! (yeah! I made up the word)

Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head. ~Carl Sandburg,