Today, I want to share a very exciting account of my conversation with my son, Sonu.

It is early morning 7:50 am, I am on the wheels and Sonu (one of my 5.5-year twins) is on the next seat and we are on the Tolichowki flyover. Sonu is watching outside the window and I am silently driving through the morning traffic. I sensed the silence and broke it by asking Sonu, “why are you so silent, beta?”

Sonu said, “papa, zero divided by zero? What is this? Isn’t it stupid?”

I said, “I don’t know beta. Tell me more about it.”

Sonu kept silence for some time. After that, we had some chit-chat about the Jaguar-Land Rover showroom at Shaikpet, various other cars on the road, mobile cranes, flyovers under construction, etc.

Then Sonu said, “papa, zero divided by zero is nothing. Why they write like that”. This time his voice had slight irritation and his face was serious.

I asked, “what is it, beta? Tell me more about it.”

Sonu said, “zero, then divided by sign, then another zero. That is how we write “zero divided by zero”. That is so stupid”. His irritation was clearly visible in his voice now.

He mentioned the same couple of more times in the next 5 min and then we reached school.

I was still wondering what he was talking about. Where did he see – zero divided by zero?

Another day, I am going to pick up Sonu from school. It is about 1:30 pm and we are on the approaching Tolichowki flyover and Sonu’s question was running in my mind. I had no idea how to deal with that question. I shared the same with Monu and requested him to check where is it written – zero divided by zero.

In less than 20 sec, Monu screamed with surprise, “papa, zero divided by zero!”

I pulled over the car to the side and stopped to check it out. As I saw the hoarding, I hit my head and laughed all along the way to school. I am sure that you’ll also laugh. Here is what I saw – zero divided by zero.

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How things land on children mind matters so much. It triggers so many thoughts and analysis. They go through so many emotions around it and deal with it too. I also started thinking, “how this symbol came into existence with the popular interpretation.”

Thank God that I didn’t provide any answer to Sonu as he was expressing his emotions.

If you resonate with the thought, please comment below and share such incidents from your life too.