As I read the first part of the book, I was really
interested because it started with a reminiscing story. It was when a man named
Ravi found his old calculator given by his Bauji (grandfather) named Vijay
Sahni as his birthday present 25 years ago. The beginning of his mathematical
journey was the moment when the calculator was given to him. He accidentally
pressed the numbers 342, the same numbers he had pressed before. When he was a
child, his Bauji introduced a magical Mathematics using the calculator. He told
Ravi to press a 3-digit number, repeat it, so he had a 6-digit number then
divided it by 13, 11 and 7. The boy was surprised with what he got and I was
pretty impressed with the result too! It was the same 3-digit number! That was
really amazing for me and I even tried it on my own calculator. Because of his
curiosity, he tried to find out what is the principle behind all those numbers.
And eventually, he derived to a solution which made his Bauji very happy. Furthermore,
Ravi’s fondness of Mathematics was the result of Sahni’s influence on him.
Aided with the challenging problems, the little Ravi excitedly solves them and
presents it to his Bauji. However, the death of Sahni wounded him but he continued
the legacy that his grandfather had left. As he grew up, little did he know
that as he studied the intricacies of Infinity, he discovered a well-kept
secret of his grandfather’s. Ravi has unraveled the story of Sahni’s
imprisonment for saying against Christianity when he heard one of the people
talking about religion, for the people were firm believers of the faith of God
and they do not permit other forms of worship. The two of them contributed on a
philosophical investigation about truth, faith and certainty in religion,
mathematics and life.
The book was
named A Certain Ambiguity primarily because Vijay Sahni’s principles and
beliefs seemed to be vague but in reality, it is concrete. His valuable
conversations and talks with Judge Taylor, an individual which tried to listen
to because he wants to be just in his decision but will not compromise his
being a Christian became discussions of Mathematics and how philosophy mended
Mathematics and the reason of existence. Though he had reservations, the story
goes on with the Judge reading on the works of Euclid and geometry. Everything
was written and Ravi continues to read it every night, contemplating. More so,
with the excerpts of the journal entries of famous Mathematicians and the story
going on with the records of the stenographer on each interview, Ravi has
finally realized his desire to be a Mathematician. Juggling on the decision
that either he will accept the job at a big corporation or pursue the world of
academe, the newspapers and court notes opened his mind a bit further, and
understood why his Bauji would really like for him to carry on the Mathematical
legacy he has. Continuing on his study of the infinity, Nico has helped him
pursue his chosen career of becoming a Mathematician, and fulfilling his
grandfather’s dreams for him. This was ambiguity for him in the first place,
and yet, it is now clear for him.
In the fiction
novel, we can learn that life offers us a lot of ambiguity, but it is up to us
on how we would like to see things in perspective, how we broaden our horizon
to think that such vagueness could mean a lot to us by seeing the evident.
Ravi’s Bauji has proven just that. He considered Mathematics far more than a
subject, but a challenging path that presents answers to such dim problems. All
we know is that we are always amazed on how the minds of Mathematicians think
despite such stigma of perplexity and yet, they are able to produce brilliant
solutions to life’s blurry details.
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