7. The lion and the goats

My eldest brother Hriday used to get a hundred out of one hundred in mathematics. He took after my father. Ahana descended to sixty and Mantu to forty. I descended to thirty-three! Fortunately, in the Indian system, thirty-three is passing. Sometimes, with greatest difficulty, I would get forty.

I used to memorise everything in the book, but the teacher would change the questions on the examination day, so my memorisation did not work.

When my brothers were in college, my father used to tell them mathematical equations from memory while he was lying down relaxing. He would help them solve their problems with such speed and accuracy that he always astonished them. Such brains my father had! That is why my aunt used to say that my father was a lion and my brothers and I were goats.