My mom and I were seriously engrossed in solving a very challenging mathematics problem when Dad arrived as a harbinger of doom, conveying the devastating news that two of his male colleagues, accompanied by their better halves, would be coming for dinner at 7.30 pm.
Mom looked grumpier than ever as the clock struck six times. She threw a baleful glance at my book and then at Dad before entering the kitchen, muttering all the way.
I stared bewildered at her receding figure and my mathematics book again. What would I do now without Mom helping me solve these never-ending problems? We had just started to find the ages of seven people in a house given the age of no one but with a handful of statistics connecting all their ages.
Then, on another page, two damned pipes leaked at different speeds; one could fill a bucket of a specific capacity to the brim in whatever time, and then we had to find the time the second tap would take to fill the same bucket.
Life would have been so simple if the taps weren’t leaking. Why couldn’t someone have repaired them like my dad did when taps leaked in our house?
He makes a big hullabaloo, spreading spanners, pipe ranges, hammers, and washers all over the house. Everything gets drenched with water. But seriously, no kid would mind this compared to being bombarded with questions about leaking taps.
The clattering of utensils emerged from the kitchen. Bang, clang, dum!
This was the only way Mom could show her indignation whenever she was annoyed with Dad.
Dad cleared his throat and gave a brief pre-introduction of the guests.
‘Wonder why maths has become so difficult in the 7th class,’ she grumbled without paying attention to what he was saying.
Now, I am not sure whether that was a spontaneous remark made by Mom or, as Dad accused her, whether she deliberately ignored what he was saying.
He repeated the introduction session.
“What difference would it make if they were called Tom, Dick, Enna, or Meena? Will one of them prepare the elaborate dinner, or will one of them teach Joe his mathematics?” Mom took a brief pause. I heard her blow her nose.
“By the way, Joe is your son, studying in class 7th, and has selective amnesia when solving mathematical problems.” She bawled.
The sarcastic outburst did not affect Dad. He was too busy combing his hair.
“Is there something for dessert being made, or should I….?” Dad peeped into the kitchen but stopped speaking halfway. Though I couldn’t see Mom from where I was seated, I could well imagine her response that tied Dad’s tongue.
‘He deserves it,’ I muttered under my breath. He is the sole reason for me having been left alone to deal with this problem.
The uncle was five times more than twice the age of some nephew, whose age was ⅕th that of someone else, whose age was twice that of his daughter, whoever she was! Phew! My head went rotating, ‘Whrrrrrr….’
The door banged. Dad must have gone to buy the dessert. I hope he gets mango ice cream; I love them. Involuntarily, I smacked my lips. I thanked God that I shrewdly did not ask him what I wanted for dessert. He has this weird habit of deliberately not getting something I liked or asked for. He used to do stuff that could cause untold ignominy to my very reputation and personality as a smart boy.
“Joe needs a bicycle to ride to his basketball court,” Mom had said a few months ago.
“Why can’t he walk to the basketball court? It is only 20 minutes away. When I was his age, I used to walk several miles to fetch milk and groceries for the house. This brat only has to carry himself, and he needs a bicycle?” Dad scoffed.
He was very good at giving lectures. Every sermon would include an episode from his life when he was as old as I am. I wish Granny was alive. She would have been so helpful in corroborating his claims.
That following day, Mom spoke to her elder sister when Dad left for work. I was home with the flu. “George refuses to buy a cycle for poor Joe. He gets so tired walking to and from the basketball court, and then it is time-consuming, too.”
Mom always spoke on phone when both her hands were engaged, so the speaker would be on, the conversation audible.
“Dear Amy, you know the right time to ask him for favours, don’t you, stupid girl?” She chuckled. “Why did you put forth the demand when he returned from work? Talk whatever you want when you are in the bedroom with the right move.” She chuckled again, putting me into thorough confusion.
‘Whatever did that mean?’
I think Aunt Jessie is very smart. The following morning, Dad left for work in a cheerful mood, saying, “I will get Joe’s cycle today.”
I spent the entire day, dreaming about my new possession. I will ask Jonelle if she would like to be picked up. In a movie, I saw a young boy riding a bicycle with a girl seated on the front bar. Oops, they were so close to each other.
I dreamt of cycling like that with Jonelle. She also studied in my class and went to the same basketball court. Her silky brown hair would be all over my face as I rode the bicycle. I would keep it slow to get enough time to be close to her.
But all my dreams came crashing down like a pack of cards upon seeing the cycle that Dad got in the evening.
“My colleague said he wanted to give off this cycle,” he proudly announced as he made the wobbly, worn-out thing stand.
I looked at it aghast. Where was the bar on which Jonelle was to be seated? I threw a beseeching glance at Mom. It meant two things to be conveyed. One, this was a lady’s cycle, and the second, why was Aunt Jessi’s advice ineffective?
It would be an understatement if I claimed that the following days were agonizing. My friends would laugh at me and call me girl names.
“Oh, come on, what is in this to jeer at? Your friends are unnecessarily provoking you. Keep it for a while then we can buy a bigger one when you grow taller.”
I kept looking in the mirror, wondering when I would grow taller. The evening rides to the basketball court were excruciating. Boys cooed, “Hey, girly, what’s up?” They jeered. Jonelle twisted her lips in derision.
“Oh Lord, make me taller soon,” I fervently prayed, but the Lord probably was busy elsewhere. He didn’t bother to elongate my size but was kind enough to damage the bicycle beyond repair. Its chain broke, and it fell. Of course, I, too, fell but jumped to safety while a rickshaw rammed the bicycle.
Onlookers were rather amused that I was cheering instead of reprimanding the rickshaw driver.
The torture ended that day though I had to hear a sermon about a bicycle that my dad maintained for seven long years in spic and span condition.
Returning to the kitchen scenario, while Dad is away buying dessert, Mom makes her usual call to Aunt Jessie and puts her on speaker because she has to work with both hands.
“I am tired of this man. He keeps calling people home for lunch and dinner as if we have a heap of treasure waiting to be used. It is just that he wants to show off in his friends ‘ circle or wherever.” Mom took a long breath.
“The maid is not coming tomorrow, so who will clean the kitchen and the utensils?” She sighed.
“Well…” Aunt Jessie dragged a bit. It looked like she was trying to solve Mom’s predicament.
“Just keep saying your back is paining, and in between the dinner, broach the subject of the maid taking the day off tomorrow. If one of the guests is graceful enough to understand your situation, they will offer to clean up.”
I felt conviction was lacking in her prophecy, and my mother, too, expressed her misgivings about the plan’s success.
There was a tiny pause, probably one that had Aunt Jessie looking for another solution to my mother’s problem.
“I want to divorce this man,” Mom said all of a sudden, using that pause.
“What? On what grounds?” Aunt Jessie quipped. “Just because he calls guests home, you can’t apply for divorce.”
There was a longer pause now. Aunt Jessie’s tone changed into an acerbic one. ” You could have not only applied for divorce but also got good alimony if you could have successfully argued that he was not good in bed. But you have Joe between you.” She guffawed.
As always, I was thoroughly confused by her words. I don’t sleep between Mom and Dad; I have my bed in another room. Why was Aunt Jessie saying, ‘You have Joe between you?’ This appeared more confusing than the leaking pipes mathematics problem.
My mother said something to Aunt Jessie, but that part of the conversation didn’t fall into my ears properly because the word ‘alimony’ had transported me to an episode almost a couple of months ago.
My mathematics book said, ‘Mrs. Carol asked for an alimony equal to 1/3rd of her husband’s monthly income, which was some blah blah amount. However, in the court, her husband, Mr. John, said he would not agree to it but instead proposed to give 1/3rd of the monthly rent amount he earned by letting out his two houses, whose rent amounts were again blah blah and blah blah.’
Mrs. Carol and everyone in the court cooed and laughed at that statement.
Now the question asked was, why did everyone laugh?
Even in the wildest of my dreams, I did not understand where mathematics was involved in this laughter. The problem was with people laughing.
I knew Carol Aunty very well. She made such delicious cakes and sent them across to me. I can take the liberty of asking her why she laughed. So I hopped across to street 3, where she stayed with her husband, whose name I came to know is Mr. John.
Carol Aunty was preparing something delicious. The aroma pierced through my nostrils. I somehow refrained from drooling.
“Hi, Joe. What has brought you here? Would you like some chocolates?” she smiled and gave me two bars of chocolates.
“Wait for a while; I am preparing strawberry cake.” She patted my cheeks. Though I didn’t appreciate people doing that to me, I kept my composure and accepted the bar of chocolates from her.
“Aunty, I need to solve a mathematical problem involving you and uncle,” I said.
“What sort of problem involving us?” She put her hands on her hips and raised her brows.
“I wanted to know why everyone in the court, including you, laughed when Uncle said that he would give alimony equal to one-third of the rent he earns every month.”
That was it! Carol Aunty turned into a monstrous. She snatched the chocolates from my hand and dragged me home, forgetting her strawberry cake.
“Amy,” she screamed, and my mother came rushing. “What nonsense are you teaching your son? He is talking about my divorce with Harry.”
I interrupted. “I only asked my doubt about the alimony. Who is getting divorced, and who is Harr..….”
A tight slap landed on my face before I could finish. I don’t know who awarded me with that. Through blurred eyes, I saw Mom profusely apologize to Carol Aunty, who hadn’t stopped brandishing her pointer.
When she left, I was awarded with more slaps until I showed my mother the mathematics book. Ironically, she fell into a peal of laughter.
Then, she explained to me what alimony meant, and everyone laughed in the court because the amount pronounced by the husband was more than what the wife (Carol in the book) demanded.
So, Mom was discussing with Aunt Jessie about divorcing Dad. “George is not helping Joe with his studies. His exams are approaching, and he is especially weak in mathematics.”
Mom was interrupted by Aunt Jessie’s laughter.
“He is, after all, your son. How do you expect him to be a mathematics wizard? Don’t you remember you got a good thrashing from Dad for scoring 11/100 in mathematics?”
“Come on, Jessie. That was in the sixth standard. Didn’t I improve after that? George can also put in some effort to teach his son. I wish that could be a strong point of contention for a divorce,” Mom asserted.
“Oh, come on, Amy. The judge will laugh at you. Why can’t you enrol him in some tuition classes instead of creating such a huge ruckus over a subject in school?” Aunt Jessie gave her million-dollar advice.
“I tried putting him in a tutorial that charges nominal fees. It has many students, but Joe needs special attention, and I can’t afford to enrol him as a single student with George’s modest income. I am saving as much as possible to put Joe in special classes when he goes to higher standards. His mathematics is getting more difficult by the day. I spent hours understanding it before teaching him. George makes no effort. He only wants to play Samaritan to the world outside this house.” Mom groaned after delivering the monologue in one breath.
“Oh, no, you are saying his salary is modest, and then you want alimony! Sounds paradoxical.” Aunt Jessie stated as a matter of fact.
“Also, I feel your son’s mathematics has become a hot potato in your life. It is bugging you too much and snapping all your energy. Something has to be done before it takes over your health and mental peace. At least you would stop blabbering about divorcing George at the drop of a hat. I may ask Rinie if she can refer you to a tutor who charges a nominal fee.”
Rinie was Aunt Jessie’s daughter, and my cousin studying in college. Mom and my other Aunt Clara say that Rinie is a dud, but Aunt Jessie puts her in a good light, calling her a diligent student.
Wonder what sort of a maths wizard she would refer us to? The thought was daunting.
The door opened, and with that, the phone call ended abruptly.
Dad had brought mango ice cream. Yippy! That’s good. I didn’t tell him I liked that. Now I will hog on it, though our teacher has told us no one should ask for a second of dessert help. ‘I will do something,’ I rolled my eyes.
Mom was a culinary expert. The aroma of the butter chicken engulfed the house. I tried concentrating on my mathematics, though my stomach was rumbling in hunger.
It had slipped Mom’s mind to give me my hot chocolate drink at 5.30. We were too engrossed in sorting out stuff from the mathematics book.
I had given up on the age problem. I worked it out, and it happened that the uncle was 20 years younger than the nephew. Logically, I knew that couldn’t happen, so I left it for my mom to sort out. Solving the leaking pipe issue was also not in my realm, so it lay there.
I had fresh issues now in another chapter. Numbers in merry triads appeared, but they were perennially called x,y,z, p,q,r, or r,s,t. Only two were assigned values, and my poor brain had to work hard to find the remaining. r was the chief vagabond; it sometimes paired with p,q, and at other times with s,t, giving me untold headaches.
I searched in vain for the values and drew a blank.
Mom and Dad were having a tiff over some menu.
“I told you my friend’s wife can’t eat spicy food; this is too spicy,” Dad screamed.
“Oh, ya, you are well updated with the tastes and distastes of your friend’s wife.” My mom screamed back.
The argument between the two had reached a crescendo. I sincerely wished the fight to end, as my head was already aching from the lost alphabets and ages of people. To add to the agony, my stomach was making weird noises.
I prayed that the guests would arrive soon and end the brawl.
God had never answered my prayers to date, but today was different. The bell rang, and the guests were ushered in. However, as per Mom’s instructions, I was in my room. They would call for me at the right time, I knew. The right time was when dinner would be announced.
Knowing my dad well, I was sure it would take another hour. He would prefer to have some drinks with his colleagues.
Not wanting to waste that precious hour, I tried again to search for the lost ‘r’. When that failed miserably, I went back to find out the ages of that seven-member family, but every time, the children landed being older than the parents, uncles, and aunts.
I sat holding my aching head between my palms when the door to my study opened, and two ladies walked in with my mom.
I was somewhat bemused to see Mom beaming. She behaved like the guests were welcome anytime, and her grouchiness was gone.
“Oh! This is your son, Joe?” one of the ladies hugged me and kissed my forehead. I wouldn’t say I liked it when people treated me like a child. I looked crossly at Mom and met with her pleading glance.
“So you are having trouble with your mathematics,” said the second lady. I glanced bewildered at Mom. What had she told them about me, mathematics, and our bond? I hope she didn’t spill the beans by disclosing that I scored 3/50 last time. If she had done that, I decided to remind her about her poor scores in mathematics, which Aunt Jessie had disclosed during the conversation today.
“Hmmm,” it is a fascinating subject.” The second lady smiled while the first lady kept ruffling my auburn hair, much to my vexation.
“I have spoken to your Mom and Dad. From tomorrow, I will teach you mathematics, and you will soon realize how problems can be solved quickly. ” She said this while I looked at Mom bemused.
“Aunty is a mathematics teacher at St. Thomas school. She has offered to teach you the subject,” Mom beamed again. It looked like a hundred kg stone had been downloaded from her head.
Aunty took my book, and in the next ten minutes, the ages of all seven members were ready, and the lost x,y,z,r,s,t,p, and q were all found.
“I will teach you how to solve all this tomorrow. Come, let us have dinner.” The first lady stopped playing with my hair, much to my relief, and teacher Aunty, as I would prefer to call the other lady, walked with me to the dining table.
Food had never been so delicious before.
“Thank you, Mrs. Lily, for offering to teach Joe,” smiled my dad as he took out scoops of mango ice cream after dinner. Without me asking, he added one extra scoop to my cup. That showed he was in a good mood.
After the guests left, I tip-toed behind him to the kitchen. I caught him nudging Mom playfully, and Mom responded with a giggle.
“See, you blamed me by saying that a storm in the form of guests was coming home during Joe’s exams to plummet everything, but not all storms are harmful. We found a tutor for Joe, and that one, too, has offered to do an honorary job.”
I should have realized that all the nudging and giggling must have had an extended after-effect in the bedroom, resulting in something nice the following day, as Aunt Jessie always prophesied.
In the evening, Dad got me a new bicycle. “Here, take this, my son, and ride on it to your basketball court,” he said, flashing a smile.
I caressed the strong bar of the black beauty. ‘Jonelle would be sitting here soon.’
It looked like mathematics had been a niggling problem and a reason for all the discontentment in the house.
Somewhere, a pipe leaked!