One day, Enumerator A, stationed at Colaba, saw a customer spit over the paanwala’s shoulder into an open manhole in the corner. It was a slim but steady projectile, voluminous along its trajectory, minimal in its girth. The act was as effortless as it was exceptional. Many had tried, as evident from the red stains around the manhole. Enumerator A immediately dismounted from his perch to procure a tape from the tailor a few shops down the street and measured the distance—‘Six feet.’ He measured the radius of the hole. ‘Nine inches.’ From that day onwards, he pursued these measurements for four or five exceptional men every week. On the last page of the register, he inserted a column tabulating the number of customers who aimed at that manhole, then selected the best among them—about one in every forty. For these exceptional ones, he recorded the spitting distance in metres and the girth on a three-point scale. He invested in a measuring tape with his first wage.

‘The mean volume is consistent and the variance seems close to zero,’ he noted in one of the rows.

‘What is this column—spitting length?’ Young asked when he was reviewing the register at the end of the month.

‘The distance between the spitter and the manhole,’ Enumerator A responded.

‘And this?’

‘The number of spitters—an average of 198 each day, at one manhole.’

‘Seems enough to clog the drains. No wonder it floods every time it rains.’

‘Sir, let me tell you what I discovered.’

‘Why don’t you just do what you are told?’

‘Sir, this data shows there is a relationship between spitting distance and—’

‘Do you know what this amounts to?’

‘No, sir.’

‘It amounts to nothing. You’ve wasted so much time  . why are there so many zeroes?’ Young raged.

‘Sir, many of them don’t spit near the shop. I can’t run after them to see where they spit.’

‘Then it is missing data, not zero. Don’t you know the difference? Zero means that the man spat on himself, that the length is zero. Missing should be denoted using a small dash, indicating that the data was not collected. How can I trust the rest of your work? You will not be paid until you sit for another month and gather the data again. Serves you right for using your head instead of your hands.’ Enumerator A’s smile vanished from his face, along with his colour.

‘Sir, the rest of the data does not have this problem.’

‘It is in your best interests to do the whole exercise over again if you don’t want me to substitute you with someone else who will not waste his time pursuing stupid questions like how and why people spit into round holes.’