Sunday, November 7, 2010

Purr-fect TEN !

Last month, it was just 2 days to my birth-day, a bleak Sunday. 


But still, stubborn and crazy as always, I was coming to the office, gasping  fer a place to stand in a jam-packed public bus by which I normally commute. 


Contradictory though it may appear, I was going to the office because I was feeling lonely, though I would be all alone in the office fer sure...!
[ Even when not alone, we sometimes feel lonely...and even when alone, we sometimes do not feel lonely...don't we..?? ]


And in the mêlée, I saw a poor old man struggling to stand amongst us boys & men in the bus. I silently took note of this, & at the next stop, although I jostled and managed to get an empty seat, I motioned to the old man to come sit there. 


His wrinkled eyes smiled a smile of gratitude, & he slowly made way & sat down grimacing with an expression of both relief & pain in the seat near me. He patted me & offered to take my bag, which I was juggling along with my jacket that I carry in case it would rain, but is too hot & humid to wear otherwise. But I politely refused saying "Parvaagilla Sir!'  [Kannada fer "It's ok, Sir!"]


Soon, the conductor of the bus elbowed his way into the dense jungle of people & came to me asking to show my ticket/pass...


I somehow managed to produce a Rs.10/- note frem my pocket & said "Town-Hall"...
I got the ticket, & soon enough, the passenger next to the old man got up to alight the bus.


The old man promptly 'reserved' the window seat fer me & welcomed me with a smile :)
I too smiled & sat down, & proceeded to look at the ticket, as is my usual wont...(to check if there are any Prime numbers...!!)...


And what I saw...made me almost shriek with delight...! :)


I quickly marked the ticket-number & wrote something...(the old man who was now looking on was quite amused..! )...& as for me, I just couldn't wait till I shared this with my friends...!!


I could not help but smile to my-self that SUCH a co-incidence could happen, & HOW happy i felt that I was able to recognize the pattern of numbers which lay smiling at me...!!
I could not breathe easy...I could not eat a proper lunch also that day...till I had captured a snap of it.


A day after my birthday(yes, I skipped office on Monday...due to ill-health...was feeling too lone-ly and bored...crazy me..!)...i.e., on Tuesday, I could not help but where I pestered ALL my hapless colleagues to please take a look at the ticket.


Finally, after our afternoon meeting that day, I could no longer contain my excitement.


I pleaded with my dear friend Venkat Karthik, an avid Apple fan/user, to please get me a snapshot of this ticket, before it gets lost. He kindly obliged & mailed me the image a couple of days later. 


Check out my ticket...(Thanks to Venkat's brand-new Apple i-Phone 4 ! )








Below, is the pattern which made me scribble what i did on the ticket...the ticket number, as it had turned out...has/had ALL the leading digits in the exact same sequence as 10! 
(10-factorial not 10 followed by an exclamation-sign(!) of which i bet I'm one of the heaviest users..!! ;) ), which is defined as the product of all natural numbers from 1 till 10

i.e., 10! = x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x ...9 x 10
    10! =  3 628 800



Now, let me tell you what made this ticket  SO special fer me..!
  • The price fer it = Rs.10/- .That's the exact fare frem Srinivasanagar till Town-Hall, Bangalore.
  • The Value being 10! (missing the last zero of-course..). The probability of that is 1 in 10^6, or in plain English, 'one in Million' literally & mathematically as well..!! :) Just imagine, in that tightly packed bus, with so many people buying tickets, even if another person had got a ticket before me or had not got one, then I would have missed out ON this purr-tick-ular number ! It makes me feel thrilled to simply contemplate it backwards...! Phew !  :)
  • More over, I had NO need to go to the office on a fine Sunday...! Consider the date I got this gift of a ticket! As I mentioned, I got it 2 days before my birth-day, (October-12)...which makes the date-- the 10'th...!! Yes, and that too in the 10'th month(October)...totally, 10/10/10...!  :)


All in All, it was a perfect TEN-ner indeed...!! :)


But I admit I am not at all happy about the formatting of this article--it deserves much better. 


I promise to do something (special) fer it soon..! :)


Fer now, hope this made you remember something..ANYthing...that made you feel Special & Loved...!?!?
No..?? 
HOW & WHY else, do you think you're reading this article..!?! :)


It's because YOU are special indeed fer me...!!..


Thanks pa...fer...always (g)Listening to me... ;):)


Are(n't) YoU.???


Lots of Love & Best wishes,
The moron in rags
Planet Earth
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For the usual dose of  'Comic' -relief...click on the image below ! :)
(Hope you get the nice joke in this..! :) Courtesy  of dear Mr.Jim Davis :))










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8 comments:

  1. wow ! we of10 are lost
    in persis10t work related 10sions, as if 10ted in the cubicle in rot10 compi10t world that we ignore such in10s moments.
    kudos to ur 10able thoughts and request you to keep our la10t mind a10tive with nice 6tickles in future as well :)

    Btw, wondering if there is any way to find inverse offa factorialed number?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fanatastic Observation "Beautiful Mind" !!

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  3. Thanks a lot dear @Kiran, @Prash-darling, & also dear @Sriki...well, i jusst shared what i felt should really be! :)

    @Prash -- THANKS fer ur int-arresting con-10-t dear, & also fer that love-ly musing in the end..!
    In fact, I had written another article very painstakingly (pain in formatting Math-symbols..! :( & adding COLORS..! :) )...but it is in PDF..!!
    I think we CAN find the inverse-Factorial...! :)
    [V simple iteratively...]
    But there's something b'ful hidden in it too.!
    We'll discuss SOON...

    Me sitting ALONE now...at home...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Of-course...we will Have to assume that the user never expects 0 as the answer...when he/she gives 1 as the input..!! :P
    Other-wise, it fails to be-come one-to/on-one..! :P

    ReplyDelete
  5. Amazing Raghu !!! God Blessed you to be one in a million !!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Amazing Raghu... God has blessed you to be One in a Million.
    I remember a quote from Paul Coelho :

    You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.

    ReplyDelete
  7. That was just mindblowing. Anybody else, one among a million, if had got this ticket would have made it into pieces.

    The perfect 10! ticket was meant to be landed with the perfect person :-)

    ReplyDelete

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Thanks a lot in deed.. :)