How my mom broke my pride !!

( Its been a year since I have updated anything on my blog.Though i’m not a prolific writer, but letting out my own thoughts once in a while gives sheer joy of expressing yourself, which i was missing as Life started to show its true colours and has taken a toll on my blogging. This year I don't want to keep my blog posts empty and would like to finish off with a lesson I learnt.)

As far as i remember, this incident has happened way back in 1997 during which i was pursuing my Seventh grade in the school. I came across a math puzzle in a daily newspaper  which is given below in two tables

2	9	4
7	5	3
6	1	8

            Table 1

            Table 2

The challenge was to use numbers from 1 to 9  and arrange in such a manner that summation along any row , column or diagonal is constant . Here in the above case of table 1 , the summation equals to 15.  Table 1 was given as an example of how to arrange the numbers to get the desired value and the table 2 is to be filled based on table 1.  and the summation along any row ,column and diagonal in the table 2 should be equal to 18 using numbers from 2 to 10.

“ The above puzzle if solved correctly will be rewarded properly” claimed the daily newspaper. I was tempted to solve this puzzle at any cost and win a prize for myself. So I, along with my tenant Chaitanya started with various permutation and combinations to arrive at the desired value. I was good at math during my school and that was the driving  motivation that kept me going.

During our struggle, my mom noticed us and inquired about brainstorming session that was heading towards a stalemate. My mom was willing to help us, but I rejected and knowing her background education made a sarcastic comment as though she cannot solve it as I, myself  , who was very good at math and always got 95-100% in math exams was struggling.

In spite of  my protest , she took the paper and saw the puzzle  we were struggling for and gave back the paper after scribbling something within FIVE seconds. I was flabbergasted  to see the  puzzled solved !!!.

My mom who studied upto School only and graduated way back in 1973, solved the puzzled within a  few seconds and I never saw her solving any puzzles whatsoever.  This came as total shock to me and  I asked her how she did it . She told a small trick to solve this problem. I was  once again in a state of shock.

Thus , that is how my mom broke my pride of underestimating . From that time onwards, I never underestimated  any person whatsoever based on their background. A very simple lesson learnt in a very powerful and effective way.  Thanks Mom and I’m sorry too.

I got reminded of one of the great quotations that very aptly depicts this situation.

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards" ~ Vernon Law.

P.S:  Give it a try and solve it within few seconds. The clue lies in table 1.