Time to learn probability

I’ve decided to spend time to learn Advanced concepts of probability and here’s why.

We had shifted to one of the remotest part of the world, a place notorious for elephant attacks. The little society we lived in was gated with electric fence, to protect us from the gentle giants. Everyday in the evening the watchman anna would close the gates. When he wasn’t around, me and my sister were entitled to do it.

On a wintery week watchman anna went on a long leave. As usual me and my sister were dutifully closing the gates — saving the entire community from the malicious pachyderms. When I say electric gates if you pictured them as strong, heavy iron gates, at least 15 foot tall like those that you see in Jurassic park, then you’re wrong they were nothing like that; it was nothing but a metal slinky with a plastic handle. The handle allows you to pull the slinky without getting electrocuted.

Taking daily walk to the gate was way too monotonous for me so I decided to spice it up, usually we reached the gate before dusk but today I made sure we’d reach there only after dark (my sister was afraid of the dark).

We always carried a torch with us, once we were nearing the gate I switched off the torch. My sister started panicking and frantically tried to turn it on, but that wouldn’t turn on (I had loosened the batteries so as to make sure they’d not turn on ​😈​ ). The entire place was pitch dark we were hardly able to see each other. She held my hand tightly and ran towards the gate, closed the gate and sprinted back to our home still holding my hand tightly.

Once we reached home I teased her for how she panicked and told her what I had done. Next day we were late but this time it was unplanned, when we reached the same spot I dropped the torch — again unplanned. But my sister thought I did it on purpose and when we reached home she told mom and dad what happened, I got several hours of lecture of how unsafe it is to roam around in the dark in such isolated areas.

If you thought hours of lecture is horrible, the worse was yet to come. The torch was damaged so badly that we couldn’t use it anymore so my mom handed us a Nokia 1100 which we could use as a torch. I was playing with it while walking and this time once again when we reached the same spot the lights went off — the battery of the phone died which was definitely unplanned. But my sister wouldn’t buy that and gave me a tight slap. Ouch! that was a lot more unplanned.

I went home crying and tried to explain but none took my side. I was caught as a repeat offender. Damn! who would believe if I said a Nokia 1100 battery drained quickly. But honestly it wasn’t my fault and that was the last time I was asked to close the gates.

A few months later we performed a ritual for Lord Ayyappa, as a part of the ritual — Ayyappa priests and devotees would come to every other home perform a Pooja for a few minutes and collect rice and palm sugar (this would then be used to make Pongal at the temple). By the time the Ayyappan deity reached our home it was well into night and the devotees took a passage through the woods to reach our home, it was clearly dangerous; poor people they must’ve not known there is another road route to our home.

Once the rites completed and they were going to leave I spoke to one devotee “Anna, inga road irukku, unga car eh inga vanthu pick panna sollikonga antha kaatu vazhi use panna vendam anna” (Anna, there is road route here; you can even ask your car to take this route to pick you all, you needn’t use the passage through the woods.)
With a soft smile he said “Antha road vazhiya epdi ma sami selai eduthuttu porathu?” (“How will we be able to take the deity through the road route?”)

I didn’t understand what he was trying to say and didn’t discuss more with him. Later that week I asked my mom why they didn’t take the road route but she tried to avoid my question. And that is when I definitely needed to know the answer. I spent a week more questioning everyone in the neighbourhood and finally found a folklore which people still believe.

During the colonial period a poor butler had a mentally disabled daughter who was afraid of shadows. Their one room mansion was then located next to the gate and since the girl was afraid of shadows she was always kept in the dark. When she reached adolescence she passed away, some say her father killed her since she was becoming a burden to them, others say she died due to illness.

But all of them believe that her spirit roams around the huge Gulmohar tree that envelopes the gate. And there are a few who even worship her on weekends and a few who give sacrifices to keep the little girl happy. And they believe she was afraid of shadows and since always lived in the dark she still likes the darkness and doesn’t allow us to bring light to that area.

Well it isn’t unusual to hear such folklore’s there are plenty of them, but I wanted to experiment with bringing light beneath the tree. I tried reflecting sunlight using mirrors, I tried a myriad of angles but somehow the tree managed to build an umbrella screening the light. Days passed and the story faded away my memory.

Recently, we went back to the remote town to visit our friends. When we returned from there, it was late night. On the way back, the fast moving car hit a speed bump, momentarily making the car hover and it hit the road with great force as it landed, at the moment of impact the front and rear lights went off. Before we could think of anything the car sped a few metres forward and the car lights flickered back to normality. That is when it dawned on me that it was the same spot and I took notice of where I was; I turned around and saw the gate at a distance.

I tried to reason why the lights went off — the fuse connecting the vehicle lights must’ve been loose and hence caused the flickering, but the probability of all these events happening in same place must be more than a trillion to one. And what could be the coincidental probability for several people to experience the same? for those who thought probability is a boring stream in mathematics — it isn’t, it can be intriguing. If you’re intrigued as much as I am, it’s time to learn probability.