Middle -Chess and Mathematics

Chess and mathematics
Jupinderjit Singh

ARITHMOPHOBIA — which means a persistent and abnormal fear of numbers -- is a word I heard again recently. It cropped up during a discussion on mathematics, a subject that was my Achilles' heel in my student days (which subject wasn't, my father would say).

I almost lost two academic years to it. Yet, that subject taught me a great lesson of life. I remember it more following the World Chess Championship between Magnus and Anand. Chess and mathematics had a topsy-turvy relationship in my life. I excelled in the game to a certain level but failed in the subject of numbers.

How's that possible? I have been often asked. One is supposed to be good in both being the common refrain. Not in my case, dude. So, after securing exactly passing marks in the subject in the tenth, I crawl-passed the mark on the basis of grace marks in the eleventh. Providence doesn't help the brave always. I got just three marks in the subject in class 12. The certificate is still shown to me — a constant ridicule. Even my 11-year-old niece does it at times, all for a hearty laugh at my expense.

In the supplementary exams, my bro and his IITian friends ensured I got solved 'parchis' of the paper. It was mass copying in a school in the walled city of old Patiala. Still, I jumbled up the answers. I flunked. I stared at a dead-end road.

No teacher of maths could help me till someone told me about a young teacher of the subject in Thapar Engineering College. His fee was astronomical. And he only taught engineers or prospective IITians.

A few days ago, I had become Under-19 North India chess champion. I mentioned it to the teacher wishing I could focus similarly on maths also. He blurted out the same question. Why not good in maths if in chess? Beats me, I said, perhaps because chess doesn't have calculus and theorems, though it has theories. "Can you beat me in the game?" he asked

I did, several times that evening. Not just him but the team of him, his wife and brother. He was impressed. He saw the syllabus of my exam, asked me a few questions and took me in. The next day, he did what no teacher had done.

He separated the syllabus. One part for 60 marks, and second for 40. "You are not programmed to understand the 40 marks part, mainly calculus", he said. "Forget it. We will focus on 60 marks".

In a few weeks, he made me go through the sums again and again. The practice stretched to nearly hundred notebooks. There was hardly any question possible from that 60 marks section that I had not seen and done again and again. And the benevolent teacher took half the fee but with a rider. I had to play chess with him and his brother so that they could win the chess tournament in their college.

He did. And I too passed the exam easily, submitting the answer-sheet to the examiner in half of the stipulated time. I secured 57 out of 60, making a careless mistake, so integral and still incorrigible part of my nature, to lose three marks.

I tried in vain to find the teacher recently. But his lesson stayed with me. In life, you just can't do and attain everything. One can lose what one can do in the bargain. The great Sachin Tendulkar was not made to be a great captain. He left it in good time. He learnt his limitations.

Life is like that. It is good to have a 'nothing-is-impossible' attitude but one should know one's boundaries as well. That, sometimes, defines the fine line between success and failure, and importantly, helps to come to terms with the latter. I have revisited it at times of distress and returned smiling.

first published : http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20131119/edit.htm#4