One by Two
Jiya was excited. It was Big Mela day!
"Hurry up, Ammi!" Jiya tugged impatiently at Ammi's dupatta.
Ammi smiled. She knew the real reason for Jiya's excitement.
"The Big Mela is open ALL day, Jiya," she said. "It isn't going anywhere."
"But Rani is! To a wedding! In the afternoon..." Jiya stopped suddenly.
Ammi roared with laughter. "I knew you two rascals had planned this together!"
Rani was Jiya's neighbour. She was only five, and she adored eight-year-old Jiya.
Jiya wondered how Ammi had known their secret.
"Ammi magic!" winked Ammi.
She didn't tell Jiya that she and Rani's Amma had made their own plans for the Mela. Ammis have secrets too.
The Big Mela was as wonderful as ever. But Rani's eyes and nose were only searching for one thing.
"Jiya didi, I can smell it now!" Rani was very excited. "Rafiq Kaka's Famous Mutton Biryani and More Famous Gulab Jamoons! I want a WHOLE plate to myself! May I, pleeeeease?"
Jiya laughed. "A WHOLE plate? Your eyes are bigger than your little stomach, Rani!"
Jiya counted out her money. She only had enough for one plate of biryani and one plate of gulab jamoons. But Rani looked so eager that Jiya didn't have the heart to tell her.
"Tell you what, Rani!" she said. "We'll do a One-by-Two."
"One-by-Two? What's that?"
"You'll see," said Jiya.
"One plate of Famous Biryani, please, Rafiq Kaka!" Jiya emptied her purse onto the counter.
"ONE plate?" protested Rani. "I thought we were getting one EACH!"
"One-by-Two is more fun!" said Jiya.
"That's right!" said Rafiq Kaka, heaping a plate with biryani.
He cut a big piece of mutton in half and popped both pieces on top of the rice. Then he filled a bowl with jamoons, six instead of the usual four.
"Thanks, Rafiq Kaka," Jiya smiled gratefully at him.
Rani had had enough. "What's a One-by-Two, didi? Tell me NOW!"
Jiya put one piece of mutton on Rani's plate and one on hers. "One-by- Two means that we take ONE thing and share it equally between the TWO of us," she said.
"I like that," said Rani. "It's a fair way to share. But how do we do it, didi?"
"We draw a line right through the centre of the plate to make 1 plate of biryani into 2 equal parts. You get one part, and I get the other part, like this. One-by-Two. Same-same."
Five minutes later, the girls had wiped their plates clean.
"Yum!" said Rani. "I'm stuffed!"
"What about the One-by-Two for the jamoons?" said Jiya.
"Oh yes! I want to draw the line in the middle!" said Rani.
Rani drew a line through the sugar syrup with her spoon. But every time she moved her spoon away, the jamoons simply floated back into the centre of the bowl.
"This isn't working, didi," she said sadly. "We can't do a One-by-Two with the jamoons."
Jiya laughed. "Of course we can," she said. "We just do it a different way."
"Let's put one here for you," Jiya put a jamoon in Rani's bowl, "and one there for me. And now we do the same with the syrup. One spoonful for you, and one for me."
"Okay," said Rani. "What next?"
"We do it again," said Jiya. "One for Rani, one for Jiya. And we keep doing that until all the jamoons and all the syrup are gone."
"Can I do it now?" said Rani, eyes shining. "One here, one there. And now there are no more jamoons left. One-by-Two!"
"Not so fast," said Jiya. "One-by-Two means dividing a thing into two EQUAL parts. Are you sure we have shared the jamoons equally, Rani?"
Rani shook her head.
"Let's find out," said Jiya. "Count how many jamoons you have, and how many I have."
"I have 1,2,3... 3 jamoons, and you have 1,2,3... 3 jamoons. That means," Rani was excited now, "we have shared the jamoons EQUALLY! We have a One-by-Two! And we didn't even draw a line in the middle!"
Jiya laughed. "Yes, you got ONE of TWO equal parts, and I got ONE of TWO equal parts. ONE by TWO!"
"Hurray!" said Rani. "Can we eat now?" They grinned at each other through a mouthful of yummy jamoons.
"Did you girls have fun?" asked Rani's Amma.
"Yes, Amma!" Rani hugged her mother. "I learned how to turn ONE into TWO." "One into two?" Ammi looked puzzled. "I don't understand."
Jiya and Rani giggled. "That's okay, Ammi," winked Jiya. "It's a secret."

Learning to share
What if Rani's friend Raju had joined Jiya and Rani? Would a One-by-Two have worked then?
No, of course it wouldn't. Jiya would have had to do a different trick, called a One-by-Three, where she divided ONE thing into THREE equal parts.
What if Ammi had joined them and they still had only one plate of biryani to share? Well, Jiya would have simply performed the One-by-Four, where she would have divided the ONE plate of biryani into FOUR equal parts.
There is a name in mathematics for the trick of dividing something into many equal parts. The trick is called Fractions. Fractions are wonderful because they help you share things equally and fairly.
In maths: The one-by-two fraction is written as 1/2. Another name for One-by-Two is Half. The one-by-three fraction is written as 1/3. Another name for it is One-third. The one-by-four fraction is written as 1/4. Another name for it is a Quarter.
Think about it:
How would you do a One-by-Two with a dosa? Would you draw a line through the centre with a knife or use the 'one here-one there' method?
What if Rafiq Kaka had given the girls seven jamoons? How would they have done a One-by-Two then?
What method would you use to do a One-by-Two with: A bowl of sweets A glass of sugarcane juice
