Puzzles To Puzzle You

Shakuntala Devi passed away last month, perhaps being finally releaved of the pain of having to witness the thing that she loved most turn into just a cog in the wheel of a very mechanical job-selection juggernaut. Her Puzzles To Puzzle You now stands in exalted company alongside Bhagat's Five Point Someone as the two most sought after books by a generation of "techies".

I remember my final semester in college when everyone around had collectively accepted Puzzles to Puzzle You by Shakuntala Devi as the new bible of the the modern cult. The lady with curly hair smiled from every book shelf and desk of every room in the hostel. Every hand that carried the book felt assured of its secret power and promise of success. The excitement lasted usually till the fifth puzzle before a sudden headache manifested and eventually induced an early-night slumber. And each time a tired average mind closed the book and flopped it on the bed, there she would be looking out of the book's rear cover with bright eyes twinlking mockingly at yet another fallen foot-soldier. The book true to its name had claimed yet another victim.   

The uniqueness of the book lay not in its puzzle-filled pages but in its ability to evoke a sense of stealth and discreetness in its owner. Those were competitive times, and the ability to solve one "problem" more than the general mass could mean getting ones first job in a Multi-National Company (one nation companies had ceased to be in vogue by then). Every man true to his soil could not afford to give up that sort of advantage. If you spotted someone solving problems from the book you could expect an immediate self-deprecating response... "Arre mae to aise hi yaar.. yeh sab problem solve krne se job nahi milta.. sab luck hai!"

The reactions were varied and surprisingly reflected the mentalities we harbour as a generation today. There were few who spent nights solving the puzzles from the book behind closed doors yet feigned in public to have never heard the name of Shakuntala Devi. Who's she? A mythological character? An actress? One among our million goddesses? Never heard of her! Then there was the other type. This type walked around the campus with the book eternally in their hands (as if it was just another appendage of their body). They were not good enough to solve the puzzles in the book but felt that by some strange conductive effect "carrying" the book at all times would somehow enhance their ability to unravel the mystery behind its puzzles. Shakuntala Devi must have secretly wept for them. The third type were the enterprising ones. They would make groups, decide time and place and punctually solve four problems each day. Eight years later I still see such coteries spread across different spheres of life methodically doing the task with a "not to reason why, but to do and die" attitude.

Then came the final type. The intelligent yet aloof ones, perhaps the ones who would have actually enjoyed the book if they had the time and patience. There's one of this type in every batch. Maybe a couple in others. But usually in very small numbers. One of this type would show up at a dinner table, solve the problem which the not-so-bright ones had being scratching their heads at and walk away for a daily dose of ethereal bliss. This type akin to comets came unannounced and left a tail of destruction behind. One could feel the dnner table turn into an area of very low depression (literally). The dull ones failed to understand which problem had just been solved and kept enquiring about the page number in a desperate effort to capture the steps and memorize them for posterity. The mediocre ones felt jealous and flipped the pages to find another "solvable" problem with the hope that the one just solved would not "appear" in the job selection-test. The clever ones of the lot schemed at ways to lure this "comet" to sit close to them during the actual test. This ploy usually worked well and costed just a pack of cigarettes or a cheap bottle of rum. I can vouch that the last type are the ones who successfully survive in the industry today.

I bought my stipulated copy from the roadside stall in front of Chennai Central. It stayed in my bag for a full semester ensconced under dirty laundry. I only ended up solving a couple of problems from it before delving into the life of the author, Shakuntala Devi, her life as the daughter of a circus performer, and eventually digressed further away and into the lives of other Indian mathematical phenomena. Digression has been a chronic disease I have suffered from. Perhaps that is why I did not need a book of puzzles to puzzle my mind, further.

Eight years later, strangely there is a bigger puzzle that puzzles me than all the ones the smart lady could put together. What was the purpose of all those problem solving sessions? Was job-selection the solitary hurdle that her book promised one to conquer? I doubt if she meant it to be so. The book was very effectively reduced by some marketing group from an entertaining exercise for math-lovers to a mandatory formula-cramming must-have book for job seekers. And sadly, of those tens of thousands who secured jobs by virtue of the book only a handful use basic mathematics in their daily work today. The rest can simply do without it. Sadly that is the tale for most of the text that I went through (or more appropriately, had the fortitude of not going through) during my engineering days. As for Shakuntala Devi, she tried. The rest of us were just not good enough.