The Tuition Upgrade

Drishti began the multiplication practice because her son had asked how long they would take to reach school for the fifth time in eleven minutes. The question deserved an answer she did not possess, so she offered mathematics instead.

They were passengers in their usual cab, safely seated and secured. Their driver, Gopal, concentrated on the Whitefield road ahead. Drishti kept the conversation gentle and did not ask him to participate in the examination.

“What’s six times seven?” she asked.

Her son, Neil, looked disappointed that the journey had acquired homework.

“Why?”

“Practice.”

“Traffic is already practice in patience.”

She appreciated the sentence but retained the question.

They made it a game rather than a punishment. Correct answers earned the right to ask the next question. Neil soon discovered that his mother’s response time declined sharply when he moved beyond the tables she expected to revise.

“What’s nineteen times sixteen?”

Drishti looked out of the window.

“Beautiful tree.”

Neil smiled. The game had become balanced.

Over the following weeks, they practised on some journeys and simply talked on others. When Neil was tired, they stopped. A commute did not need to become another classroom merely because both passengers were available and the road was slow.

Still, his confidence improved. At a school meeting, his teacher mentioned that he answered multiplication questions more comfortably now. Drishti was pleased. Neil said the car had a good syllabus, except the timetable depended on junctions.

The teacher laughed and asked whether he enjoyed it.

“Mostly when I test Mama.”

Drishti accepted this as a fair review.

Meanwhile, the family had been considering a move that would make everyday travel more practical. They looked carefully at the new route, safe access and household arrangements. The shorter school journey was one of the benefits everyone liked.

Then Neil asked what would happen to the multiplication class.

Drishti paused. She had spent months wishing for less time on the road. Now one small useful thing had become attached to the inconvenience, trying to negotiate for continued existence.

“We can practise at home,” she said.

“But at home you say you have work.”

This observation was even stronger than nineteen times sixteen.

They discussed it honestly. The car had not supplied magic educational ingredients. It had supplied time in which they paid attention to each other. They could keep that part without keeping the longer commute.

Neil proposed keeping the game’s title as Car Maths, even at the dining table. Drishti asked whether the name would confuse visitors. He said adults named many things after places they were not currently in. She thought about several office meeting rooms and decided he had a point. The notebook kept its name, while the journey lost the obligation to provide an entire lesson before assembly.

After the move, they made a short game at the dining table on suitable evenings. Sometimes it involved maths. Sometimes it involved drawing impossible animals or telling a story one sentence at a time. The school journey remained useful transport rather than a compulsory learning platform.

On their final regular ride with Gopal, they thanked him for the calm trips. Neil said he would miss the mobile classroom. Gopal smiled and said he hoped the new route was comfortable.

“Teacher also gets less travel,” he added.

At home that evening, Drishti opened the familiar maths notebook. Neil took the pencil and asked whether she was ready.

“Yes.”

“Nineteen times sixteen?”

She looked towards the balcony.

He folded his arms. “There is no traffic excuse here.”

Drishti laughed, picked up another pencil and worked it out properly. The tuition upgrade, it appeared, involved both students.

Read when you’re a passenger or safely off the road. Never while driving.