Math wizards fly high

The winners of Mathemazic pose with their certificates. Picture by Shuvo Roychaudhury 

Samabrita Sen, TT, Apr 28, 2018, Calcutta: They sleep, drink and breathe math and vehemently refuse to label it as the "dreaded" subject. Around 1,500 budding mathematicians from 100 schools took part in Mathemazic, the inter-school mathematics contest, earlier this year. The top 52, in classes V-IX categories, were awarded at GD Birla Sabhagar recently.

"In math, you either know the answer or you don't. We have to keep solving the problem and there will be an answer," said Sania Sinha, Class X, Salt Lake School (English Medium).

For Aaranyak Ray, Class VI, Garden High School, math is all about learning something new. "It is an easy subject. I just need to get the concepts clear," said the second-prize winner in the Class V category. "Math is here, there and everywhere," said Aishik Sarkar, Class IX, The Future Foundation School, who came second in the Class VIII category.

Neena Gupta of Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, explained the importance of math in simple words. "Math is an integral part of life.... Learn your concepts well and practise for hours," said Gupta, the chief guest.

The winners of the competition in the classes V-VIII categories were Anurag Chakraborty of South Point School, Baidurya Ghosh of Modern English Academy, Barrackpore, Mainak Sarkar of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur and Rudrayan Kundu of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan respectively. The joint winners in the Class IX category were Basil Labib of Saifee Golden Jubilee English Public School and Ayush Gupta of DPS Megacity.

"Many people had told us that a math competition would never be as entertaining as a singing or dancing competition. But we did not look back," said Arnab Basu, director, Switz Foods Private Limited, the main patron of Mathemazic.