Getting the numbers of our VIPs right

Politics is often said to be a numbers game. But now a new game of numbers is being introduced in the political realm. To downgrade VIP culture, displaying lal battis on the cars of public dignitaries has already been shown the red light.

To further this literal drive towards greater egalitarianism, it has been proposed that the licence plates of the official vehicles assigned to the President and the vice-president will sport not the national emblem, as has been the custom so far, but will be given numbers. But getting the number right for the head of state, not to mention the second in command, might prove to be a ticklish business.

Numerologists, who believe that people’s fortunes are inextricably linked with the numeric values associated with them, might want to have a say in the matter so as to ensure that the exercise is not left to random chance and runs the risk of going to sixes and sevens.


Opposing science against what they see as mere superstition, mathematicians might also stake a claim in this regard and offer to formulate interesting digital combinations, such as 1729 that Ramanujan instantly defined as the “smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways”. However, the best way to figure out the problem might be to go not idhar-udhar for a solution, but idhar-Aadhaar.