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Sardar's Maths
There
is this group of 7 Sardars who plan to go to Delhi to thank the
President
Dr. Zail Singh for his revolutionary policies, from which
they have
greatly benefited. Moreover, they are his old friends, and
are longing
to dine with the president. They agree that it would be
appropriate to use a taxi. So they go to a
taxi driver and ask him how
much a ride
would cost.
The driver
frets a little and tells them, "Sahab! If only four of you
were to be
there I would charge you just the meter rate, but then
since seven
of you would be there, you have to give me Rs. 10/-
more."
The Sardars
agree and decide to take the taxi. The taxi driver takes
them to Rashtrapati
Bhavan. The meter shows Rs. 18/-, so the taxi
driver says,
"You have to pay me Rs. 28/-."
Now, the
Sardars have to share the cost among themselves and so they
decide to
divide the total (Rs. 28/-) by the number of people, i.e. 7.
This is
how they do the calculation to arrive at the answer:
____
7
| 28 = 13 ( 7 x 1 = 7, 7 x 3 = 21 ).
7
--
21
21
--
0
--
The driver
(naturally) is exceedingly happy upon receiving Rs. 13/-
from each
of the Sardars. He thanks them profusely and the feeling of
exultant
happiness is writtern on his face as he leaves them and
proceeds
his way.
Seeing this,
the Sardars feel that they may have made a mistake. They
decide to
ask Zail Singh about it. After all, the fellow was the
President
of the nation! After all the initial formalities are
completed,
they ask Zail Singh to check their calculation of the
taxi fare. Zail Singh ponders over the calculations
and finally says,
"See,
I am not good at division. The process just boggles me but
addition
is something I am an expert at. Let us add all the amounts
you guys
gave to the taxi driver and check the result. This is how I
do for those tax forms I get very often.
The process
is slow but is sure." The other sardars nod their heads
(?) in appreciation.
The President
writes as shown below and also explains as he writes
on:
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
--
28
--
i.e. 3+3+3+3+3+3+3=
21 and 21+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=28 so this
checks out.
He then says, "Yes, it's correct. But I can also
call my close friend
and Finance man Manmohan Singh.
It is always better that he rechecks it. After all, he is a Finance man,
you know!"
Manmohan Singh arrives, and when
told of the problem,
he replies
that he doesn't think it is a
bad deal but says, "No problem!
I will verify it via mathematical computation. I'll verify it with
multiplication. That is the best
technique for this, you
see!"
While others
watch in admiration, Manmohan Singh goes on to write as
shown:
13
x7
---
21
7
--
28 This checks out as
well.
--
Then he
says, "This is really fine. There should be no problem,
President
Sahab. After all, it is correct in all the methods."
Peace reigns
at the President's residence as the inhabitants and
guests remain
in quite contentedness while they reminisce about their
astute abilities
on solving a problem in a successful fashion.
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