Last evening was rather special. After a long time, we witnessed Pari studying, and by that, I mean actually 'studying' and not pleasure reading, which is what she spends most of her waking hours on. I peeked in her notebook to realise that she was doing math, and my eyes almost welled up. This is such a rare sight in the household that the doting mother in me decided to feed the child and allow her an additional hour to finish her homework. I continued to insert roti and bhindi in her mouth while she toiled on HCF & LCM sums. While working out the HCF of 541 & 445, she decided to get a few things clarified.
Pari: 'Mumma, do all babies come from the mother's womb?'
Me: (wondering what prompted this.. perhaps the stupid sum) Yes, that's right.
P: (giggles) 'Oh this word is funny, sounds like 'bomb'.'
M: Corrects the pronunctiation
P: (smile disappears, grows comtemplative) Ah.. now it all makes sense. Before birth, we are in the womb, and after death, we go in a tomb.
Hence Proven.. Math does make kids philosophical.
PS. HCF of 541 & 445, really? Either there is a misprint in the book or it was written by a complete moron who takes huge delight in torturing gentle little souls - whats the point of working all the way through it and discovering that the answer is a piddly 1. Pari now believes that the HCF for most pairs of numbers is 1 and I suspect that she is writing that as the answer to all questions without even comparing the factors, and still clocking 90% success rate!!
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:)
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