THE LEGEND OF ZERO

This story was entirely Aryabhatta’s fault.

Two days ago, he showed up at my house, uninvited, and began looking through my stories.

I had planned on writing one action filled short story, as the title almost suggests, but he told me to write about the nuisance that the scientists from the future had become in his time. he said something about how, every once in a while, Einstein, or Newton or some one else would suddenly pop out of nowhere, fooling around with the time machine daVinci had created and used.

Now, he wants a post about himself, and I’m completely clueless about how to start or end.

So… he began narrating his story to me, and so it starts-

Aryabhatta was never a studious boy in his childhood; he was more of a free-spirited guy, who loved to run  around a field, and play some games, probably climb some trees . . .

And one thing was for sure. He absolutely despised his math teacher. And also, I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual. The teacher would set impossibly difficult tasks for Aryabhatta, and Aryabhatta would show up with none of the problems solved.

~~

At this point, it’s normal for my readers to ask me how Aryabhatta became such a great mathematician.

Well, all I can say is, it was all a coincidence that Arya here found out about zero.

At that time, people used to communicate in Hindi, so, for the rest of his story, I will include translations wherever required.

~~

So, now, back to the story.

One day, Arya was late for school, and he had to cross a river everyday to reach his school. He took a boat regularly, and the ferryman knew him well.

So, he was running late, and he jumped into the boat, and the ferryman began rowing.

The Ferryman was saying repeatedly,” tu kisi kaam ka nahi hai . .  .!” (“you’re worthless . . .hopeless..!”)

And then, Arya looked to one side, and saw a crocodile chasing the boat.

He began shouting,”JI . . .  Row!!! JI . . .Row . .!”

The Ferryman went nuts, yelling,”naalayak! Pagal . . .” (worth nothing!)

It was close, and as soon as they reached the other side, both jumped out of the boat, and ran for their lives, not stopping until the duo reached Arya’s school.

~~

In conclusion, when Arya discovered zero, he was thinking about words like “worth nothing” and “JI . . .Row!”

After all, Aryabhatta hated math.

He managed to give it a zero in the end.

 

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