Sreeram Srinivasan

Numeracy, a term akin to literacy, was coined by Prof. John Allen Paulos, Math professor at Temple University in the US in his excellent book, Innumeracy. Innumeracy meens Math illiteracy. In day to day life, we come across several instances of innumeracy and I am not joking. Let me share my personal experiences over last few years in our own India and in Chennai no less, which claims to have a long tradition of math excellence. Interviewing over the last 8 to 10 years, over 400 well qualified young people between the ages of 21 and 35 years, I have come across several such cases. The qualifications range from Engineering degrees, accountancy (CA, ICWA), MBAs in HR, Purchasing, Sales and Marketing, and so on. You can imagine a vast majority would be engineers considering that I am in the Manufacturing business. One of my favourite questions to them in the early minutes of the interview is ask them to state their height in centimeters and convert that to inches and then to feet. I sim...

Go figure.... is a nice american colloquial expression that is difficult to translate. It pretty much means, have no clue why things happen the way things do in this World. And these are events that are too uncanny to explain using only conventional wisdom!! Or is it just me or it happens to everyone? Here goes some such things/events 1. Why is it that you come across a new word for the first time in your life after decades but see it so many more times on the same day? 2. Why when you are running late someday, there is a traffic jam on road that seldom has traffic as a rule? 3. Why does the store assistant tell you that you missed a "30% off sale" on the item you just picked by just one day? 4. Why does someone knock or dent your car or you lose something of value the day you are leaving for a fun vacation? 5. Why one of your lady friends, that hasn't called in months, decides to call precisely when you are having a huge argument with your spouse (and your wife see...

Jus' for you these lines, Jus' for you this world, Jus for you this sunrise, and jus for you this told! Jus' for you so many lives, Jus' for you a pot of gold called life, jus' so, for you may cherish, He foretold. Jus' for you these friends, that so so dear they hold, Jus' for you so many care, Isn't so blind not to behold? Jus' for you these lines, Jus' for you this world....

What always makes us feel better... no matter what? asks a friend to a miserable "just-dumped-by-boy-friend" Elle Woods (played by the cute teethy Reese Witherspoon) in the 2001 comedy, Legally Blonde. The answer, of course is Pedicures and Manicures given that these gals are just in their early 20s. Pedicures and Manicures may be part of the popular American culture but Urban India is catching up quickly. And it is but natural, when affluence grows in a country. There is an amazing phenomenon, almost a disruptive innovation, that is sweeping Urban India and it is the morphing of barber shops into the more elegant sounding Salon & Spa places. Obviously, a socio-cultural revolution is afoot with the old lowly "neighbourhood nayee" "movin' on up" and gaining social status and respect as the beautician and therapist par excellence. For a Nation that has struggled with its caste system for so many millenniums but now at the cusp of gaining "d...