As a person with a science and technology educational background, I am a lover of the metric system of measurement. It’s much simpler and more uniform than the stupid Imperial system with foot-pound-pint stuff! But let’s not forget that there’s a system that is even worse – the “iMetric system”: the very unique measurement system that is prevalent in present day India.
How can it be worse than the metric or imperial system? Well, because it uses elements of both those systems and some elements from other lesser known and/or obsolete systems. Also, you have to know when to use which system. And the worst of all, the rules for when to use which system change from region to region and context to context!
1. Length Measurement
The metric has it nice and simple – a meter and then multiply or divide by powers of 10 (10, 100, 1000, …) to give you kilometers (1000m) for bigger distances and centi- or millimeters (0.01m and 0.001m respectively) for smaller ones.
The imperial system also has it simple-ish – 12 inches in a foot and 3 feet in a yard; miles (5280 feet) for the measurement of bigger distances.
The iMetric system uses all of the above – meter and its variants, inches, feet and yards. And there are rules for when to use which for length measurement –
Rule #1 Road distances are written in meters and kilometers. So, the signs on a highway will say “Agra – 150 km” or “U-turn – 300 m”. (Even though distances are not measured in miles, the word “mile” can still be used metaphorically in literature or political speeches, e.g. “miles to go before I sleep!” or “this is a milestone for the country”)
Rule #2 Height of a person is always measured in feet and inches, for example, a matrimony advertisement or a flier for a lost person – “Height – 5 feet 8 inches, colour – wheatish”. (It took me some time after moving to Germany to remember my own height in centimeters).
Rule #3 Foot is almost exclusively used in measuring land that you own or are constructing buildings on. For example – a house with a 10-feet front, or a 60-feet wide street in front of the house.
Then there are other units like “kos“, “angul” etc that were mentioned in the ancient Indian economics text called, Arthashastra. These units are actually not used for measurement in present day India but they do make their way into speech through idioms and phrases.
2. Area Measurement
Metric system: square m, square km (1000*1000 sqm), square cm (1/1000*1/1000 sqm) etc
Imperial system: square feet, square yards (3*3 sq feet), acres (4840 sq yards) etc
iMetric system: all of the above + some traditional Indian units. Rules for when to use which units for area –
#1 When measuring really big areas like a whole state or country for official records, square km is used. For example – the state of Rajasthan in India is 342,239 sq km (which is incidentally the closest in area and population to Germany; I checked it when putting the size of Germany in perspective).
#2 Other relatively big areas, e.g. national parks, are measured in acres. For example, the area of the main campus of my alma mater in India, BHU (Banaras Hindu University), is over 1300 acres and that is not counting its agricultural campus of over 2000 acres. (This, by the way, makes BHU the biggest residential university, by area, in Asia and also 12 times bigger than the smallest country in the world – Vatican city.)
#3 Typically, the area of houses or residential lands is measured and advertised in square yards. “Our house is 230 yards!” a person might boast. Colloquially, people don’t say “square yards” but simply “yards” when mentioning the area like this. The listener knows instinctively that they mean area, not distance.
#4 Nowadays, the area of “mass-produced” residential flats and houses in big construction projects is measured and advertised in square feets. In the most expensive areas of India (which are also the most expensive in the world), a flat of just 900 square feet might fetch 1 crore rupees or more. (See the unit “crore” in the “money measurement” section). With its large population, India has a general lack of living space. The house size is becoming smaller. So, the usage of a small unit like square feet makes more sense than sq. yards or sq. meters!
#5 Farming lands, especially in rural northern India, can still be measured in “bigha“, a traditional Indian unit of area. As per Wikipedia, “there is no standard size for bigha”. In different places in India, it can range from 1,500 to 6,771 square meters. Taking an example from the region of India I myself come from (western part of the state of Uttar Pradesh), a Bigha is subdivided into “kachha bigha” (“raw bigha”) and “pakka bigha” (“ripe bigha”) and can range from 625 sqm to 2500 sqm. The calculation is actually too complicated for my small brain! And while bigha is not an official unit, you might hear the farmers talking about their land exclusively in bighas. And the local legal officials handling the land-related cases would use them too.
#6 There is another unit of area measurement in India – “Chatak“. It is equal to 45 square feet and is only used in the Bengal region.
3. Volume Measurement
Metric System: Liters (1 Liter = 1000 cm3), ml (milliliter), cl (centiliter), Cubic meters (= 1000 liters)
Imperial System: (Fluid) ounce, pints, quarts, gallons (different gallon for the US and the UK)
iMetric System: surprisingly only the Metric units … but (you knew there was ‘but’ coming) with a twist on the terminology.
For some reason, several centuries of British rule left the volume measurement unaffected in India (the Brits managed to influence all else though). In India, the volume of things is still measured entirely in ml and liters. The word “gallon” is used but exclusively for specific containers for purified drinking water that are sold in most suburban areas. You buy a “gallon” (i.e. one of these containers) and invert it over a water dispenser with a tap. This “gallon” actually contains 20 liters of water. Now that increasingly more people are installing water purifiers in their homes, gallons (the containers, not the units) are becoming less popular. Though, they are still the best way of carrying water from one place to another (unless it’s about supplying large amounts of water to drought-hit areas; that’s when water tankers are used).
Another terminology confusion regarding volume measurement in India is “kilo”. Many Indians use the terms “kilo” and “liter” interchangeably. For example – “get 2 kilo milk today instead of our usual 1; we have guests coming!” When I was a kid, we had a cow and, in later years, a buffalo and my parents sold milk to the neighbors. I never heard my parents or the neighbors use the term “liter” when measuring the milk. And it was all fine for me until I got to the 6th or 7th grade. That’s when I learnt about units of measurement. I told my parents that “kilo” was a wrong term to be used for volume measurement. They paid no attention whatsoever to me and continued their work in their way. To this day, they continue to say “kilo” when they mean liters and honestly, it doesn’t make any difference because the other person understands what they mean. It’s only my science-oriented-OCD brain that is annoyed by it!
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