Sunday Musings: Mind Your Numbers !

London: An average human brain is known to have a finite storage capacity. If one tries to crowd in more bytes, some earlier ones get pushed out.
I have a head for figures. They get permanently lodged in the cranium. And once there, they simply refuse to leave, not unlike some city tenants.
Perhaps it was a sense of revenge that started it all. In kindergarten I once received 3 tight slaps from the class bully when I had spilt ink on his new shirt. I could never take revenge but haven’t forgotten the figure 3. Similarly, I still remember the number of the car that in 1980s had splashed muddy water on me from a street puddle.
The staircase in our village house has 14 steps; of the 29 wooden beams in the ceiling, 12th from left carries seepage marks. My school headmaster’s cycle had 4 spokes broken on the front wheel. It took me time to memorise the wordings of our national anthem, but after I heard it the first time, I remember it has 55 words.
The country’s switch to metric system in 1950s caused me no problem. A postal envelope cost 19 paise. The price of a readymade shirt my mother bought me was Rs 2.45. The first pair of Bata shoes cost me Rs 13.95.
It has long become redundant but I can’t get rid of 97512, which was my roll number in matriculation examination. History came easy

to me because I could remember which king ruled from when to when, made how many miles of roads and had how many wives.
I had better academic prospects in history through college. But my uncle made me choose science. More than avuncular respect, it was his 74 ½ inch height and 223 pounds of weight that gave him an intimidating position in family matters.
I found Science dull but kept up with the figures in college. I remember the roll numbers of all seven girls. 407 had captivating light blue eyes and 156 was the friendliest. Our zoology professor rode a black motorcycle; registration number 1664. The Botany book weighed 3.6 pounds. I could not concentrate on Botany because whenever I looked at the lecturer, I got distracted by counting the grey hair in his beard. When I graduated, the topper’s score was 33.4% ahead of mine.
My eldest brother, MS, was on field posing and his Fiat car USQ 3193 was with me in Dehradun. In June 1968, I drove it to Delhi to attend a friend’s wedding. It had 5 punctures enroute and the journey took 13 hours 20 minutes.
Alas, I seem to have reached the memory limit. Last month, on return from market, I handed over the groceries, the bills and the balance amount to the wife. After calculation when she demanded the remaining 36 rupees and 29 paise, I could not explain. I could not even speak lest she smelt the beer-breath.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          {Lt. Gen. (R) Raj Kadyan}