My tryst with Mathematics

The brochure outlining the syllabus strongly warned that the class required an exceptional level of Mathematical skill, and was not meant for an average student. This information merely made me chuckle complacently as I pitied the poor average student. The fact that half the syllabus sounded like Greek and Latin to me didn8217;t faze me in the least. When one is destined to be a genius, one does not delve into the nitty-gritty of things.

However, I lost some of my zeal for all things numerical when my alarm went of at 7 a.m. in the morning that Sunday. I soon pulled myself together and arrived at the institute in time, to seat myself in a room full of eager faces, gazing intently at a young man who introduced himself as our teacher, and in the same breath asked us to give him our undivided attention as he explained the Well Ordering Principle. My brain was still in a bewildered whirl of subsets and integers, when he proceeded to obscure things like the division algorithm and Belzout8217;s Principle. I was ready to call it a day by the time he had finished with something called Menelau8217;s Theorem, and I breathed a sigh of relief as he moved away from the blackboard and sat down at last8230; only to say, 8220;Now let8217;s tackle something slightly challenging.8221;

After what seemed like ten years and a hundred trigonometric derivations later, we headed out for a ten-minute break. This was my first chance to observe my batch-mates, and I was awed by the aura of wisdom, intellect and profound gravity that seemed to surround most of them. I ventured towards a group of people and introduced myself. One of them enthused, 8220;Do join us.

We were just debating whether Polya8217;s interpretation of Fermat numbers is more significant than Kummer8217;s, in reference to the proof of Ptolemy8217;s Theorem. Your input will help us reach a credible conclusion.8221; Fortunately the break ended there, and the torrent of proofs and principles that followed saved me from making a reply.

I managed to get through six of those awful sessions. After a point I just gave up trying to make sense of it all, and merely took down sums from the board mechanically. I felt pathetically helpless, for the first time in my life. My family tried to dissuade me from quitting, giving me the 8220;winners never quit and quitters never win8221; jazz. They even stuck a hideous fluorescent orange poster inscribed with a poem called 8220;DON8217;T QUIT8221; on my bedroom wall, hoping I8217;d get the hint. I wish I could give my saga a happy ending by describing how I persevered, sat for the examination, and came out first. Unfortunately, the ignoble truth is I DID QUIT, I had realised by the end of it all that I was not exactly God8217;s gift to Mathematics. For a lesser mortal like me quitting seemed the only logical step. I feel grateful that I had the common sense to quit while I was ahead.