When numbers are a riot of colours

Did you know that Bengaluru is India’s language capital? People in the state capital speak roughly 107 languages. With so many languages spoken, it truly is a melting pot. One of the reasons for this linguistic diversity is the huge potential Bengaluru offers to attract economic migrants.

The second most spoken language in India is a ‘foreign’ tongue. India has the world’s second-largest population of English speakers. Shortly after Independence, compared to their Indian counterparts, the average Pakistani was richer, had a longer life expectancy, and had better chances of surviving infancy. Also, across religions in India, there are more married women than men — in Kerala, for every 1,000 married men, there are 1,131 married women!

These are not new revelations; these are long-known statistics. The fact that Bengaluru is home to more than 100 languages comes from the 2011 Census, while India’s position as the world’s second-largest English-speaking population has been known since 2018.

Today, we have a glut of data, but it is of little use if we cannot decipher those Excel sheet columns or the numbers on various annual reports. Thus, for the uninitiated, a plethora of data can be intimidating — even seem useless.

Clearly, the challenge lies in decoding complex data, and presenting it in an easy-to-comprehend manner — and Rohit Saran’s 100 Ways To See India: Stats, Stories, And Surprises precisely does that. The book is a visual storytelling of India, mostly using readily available but often hard-to-comprehend data. As Saran says in his book, ‘We are flooded with numbers, but starved for insight’.

We live in an era where the difference between an informed and uninformed person is often not the lack of information, but how that information is understood and used to one’s benefit. 100 Ways to See India is an attempt to provide understanding, to build data confidence, and to bring to light facts about India that are ‘hidden in plain sight’.

Here is an example of how complex and layered data is presented readily: remember that people in Bengaluru spoke 107 languages? Interestingly, 187 mother tongues are spoken by the people in Bengaluru. This difference, of 107 languages and 187 mother tongues, is because the number of mother tongues is higher than the number of languages. For instance, Hindi is one language, but it has 56 dialects/mother tongues. Similarly, the fact that there are more married women than men tells just half the story. Polygamy, migration (men working abroad), higher female life expectancy, and more men remarrying than women could be the reasons behind these skewed numbers. The book, in addition to providing numbers, also interprets them, thereby adding an additional layer of information.

The book is divided into four sections, and my favourite is the fourth. While the first three sections do a good job in presenting data in an easy-to-grasp fashion, the fourth, titled Explore, reads like an extension of the author’s mission to demystify data and big numbers. Fifteen examples of ‘How Not to Be Fooled by a Number’ act as cue cards helping to avoid common mistakes while dabbling with numbers. The author also provides access to the raw data used in the book, along with hacks and quick links for those who want to deep-dive into datasets.

Design is a key element that makes 100 Ways To See India unique. Along with understanding data, presenting it in a manner that catches one’s attention is equally important. Particularly interesting is the design of the peacock with 100 feathers, each telling a different story about India. Sajeev Kumarapuram, as designer and ‘co-author’, has done a stellar job.

Seen from that perspective, 100 Ways To See India is a successful attempt to turn monotonous numbers into a riot of colours. It is a timely reminder that data need not be boring and that one does not have to frown upon seeing numbers. Importantly, the book helps us see India in a different light, and the author does this with numbers.

As an aside, numbers are more than just statistics; they are lived realities shaping how we see India. According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, in the time it has taken you to reach the second paragraph of this review, a theft would have taken place somewhere in India. By the midway point, a woman would have been a victim of cruelty by her husband or his relatives. And, by the time you are reading this line, separate crimes of an attack on a woman’s modesty and a burglary would have taken place.