Khaandaan Ka Paandaan.... cont

Forty-five minutes make an hour

Study time was usually an hour long for both Jasper Nana and me unless of course I was doing Math, which made it longer for me.

We were never supervised…..you see we were Christian children and supposed to be obedient and good. I must mention that we were obedient and we were good. I must also reiterate that, we were kids too. And there were days when Math was too tough to tackle and the game the kids were playing outside a lot more fun. So the little devil on my shoulder would start whispering in my ear and hey presto! The hour would have only forty-five minutes.



Now I didn’t know how to read the time on the clock, but Jasper sure could. So I’d use all my kid sister wiles, emotional blackmail et al, and get him to put the clock ahead. Of course I’d want it bucking by a bigger margin but he warned me that it would be obvious!

It was all I could do to keep a straight face when Mummy would keep re-setting the time on the clock and grumbling about the poor quality of things. All this was fun till I grew up and lost precious percentage due to poor grades in Mathematics.

If only I had put myself to it more seriously at the start; if only folks had been more patient with my Math problems; if only I hadn’t put the clock ahead, I’d regretfully think. So many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’.

Needless to say I still need my fingers to add beyond a certain number ( that's an exaggeration, but I'm awful at math) And that's not funny.


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