Strained relationships seldom last long, a thing I’ve learnt over the past years of my life. Those spits and spats, slurps and smacks, cricks and cracks; one day or the other overpower and ultimately extinguish the dying-to-die-out flames of failure. SWOOSH!! The game gets over. The boots are hanged. The knots are undone. Divergent paths are chosen. No more interference. No more disturbance. Nothing!
My monotonous expressions point to the end of a unique relationship involving human and anti-human forms of life. As expected, the human form represents me, my self, my soul (Always safe to take the main lead and humiliate your-self to any extent you want to) and the anti-human form makes up for the mirage of mathematics.
Chronologically, my almost 20-year old association with mathematics ended on 22nd May, 2010, at exactly 1200 hrs, when the itchy examiner (really itchy) snatched away the Optimization Techniques answer sheet from me. Clarifying to the non-non-medicals, OT, as we people ‘used to call’ this subject, is nothing but some more mathematics, presented to you in some more annoying and some more fretful form. Continuing after the disdainful act of the examiner, I felt an enormously heavy load being taken off my slowly-wearing-out shoulders. My long lasting battle with my greatest enemy ever had just ended. My life had just tasted LIFE. I’d now no longer be droning on the sad, somber and murderous melancholy of mathematics. I’d now no longer be: irked by the innumerable iterations, aroused by the awful algorithms and numbed by the noxious numbers. Heaven! Whoa!
But was it really a whoa-moment? Was it that heavenly? Did it really deserve such a celebration? An elation? A jubilation? Not really! Sad but significant to mention here, I was not the one who ended up on the winning side. A grace-saving statement, if any, to quote would be that I ended up on the learning side. It seemed as if my unfathomable foe marched out of the battle-field with head high and leaving me with enough to cry after making sure that I had nothing more left in me to face him but a bruised body, a scarred soul and a pitiable panorama. The great Goliath glided away un-manned, un-chained, un-tamed, showering a few drops of mercy on me.
Bringing the past to the present, I remember falling down the wagon every now and then, struggling with crude concepts and eerie estimations. The algebra anguished me, vectors vandalized me, coordinate killed me and the ratios and proportions ruined me. Not leaving behind, geometry jeopardized my left-over chances of success. But ‘probability’ gave me some solace, just because I started with concentrating on the text book, but ended up tossing coins and rolling dices, just to get a better understanding of the topic! Practical approach?
Reaching the upper rungs of the ladder of gaining knowledge, the grudges got intense and professional. With engineering mathematics knocking at my doorstep, my nightmare confronted me in bits and parts, the first being Mathematics-I, followed closely by Mathematics-II. The two together appeared to me as a Hollywood movie series, where the sequel is all the more complex and complicated than the starter. The devastation seemed to be unending with some exclusive math, Numerical Analysis and OT still waiting for me. Each and every step of mine now shivered even more. Every minute now my heart missed a beat. But I treaded on somehow.
And now I stand here in the present, exhausted and intoxicated by the mere thoughts of a hefty past, expecting a brighter and a balanced future. A part of my mind says me to relax since I won’t be facing that old maniac anymore, not at least for the coming two years. Another part tells me to be even more cautious from now on, for we may meet again. Maybe my mental tormenter has given me some time to heal, some moments to mend myself. Maybe he’ll rip me off with even more strength and even more brutality the next time. A dilemma now dazzles me, if he’s set me free only to be caught again? Or he’s had enough of me? There’s also a possibility that the ‘time out’ may be an attempt to do me out of my wits, since I’d be thinking of his next move over and over again and become a bait to my own madness!
Nevertheless, I hope to give him a tough competition at the next and final face-off. It may not be today, may not be even tomorrow. But a defeat still needs to be avenged. A debt awaits to be cleared. A calculation stalls to be solved.
