According to the Oxford English Dictionary “C” is the Roman numeral for the number 100.

From this letter “C” we have the word Century.

The Dictionary gives this meaning to the word Century -- “the company of a hundred men in the ancient Roman Army”. Hence, a Centurion is the Commander of a century in the ancient Roman Army. Century is also a hundred runs in cricket. And centenary is the hundredth anniversary of a significant event .The centenarian is a hundred year old person.

My sojourn into the net revealed a lot about the number 100.

Before I embark on those valuable facts I dug out from the net, let us see how this number is entwined with our day- to - day life.

The word  ‘hundredfold’  acts as an adjective and  also as an adverb .So, in our day to day conversations we can see the word or the number hundred popping up(a hundred times )!

My Grandpa used to be thrilled, I remember, when I used to bring the ‘slate’ (a stationary item used fifty years ago in the primary classes instead of note books…something like a small, portable (!!!) black board)  from school with the marks…100 / 100. I would get a piece of sugar candy and a “Besh” (well done). Later this ‘hundred out of hundred’ became ‘centum.’ Like you say, ‘Oh she got centum in Math.’

Parents, Grand parents, Uncles, Aunts and all elders used the phrase “I have told you a hundred times….” to admonish you when you made a mistake or ignored their advice or to remind you to do something.  

That reminds me of the punch dialogue in the Rajnikanth Movie - Badsha( heard this when my husband – a hard - core Rajni fan - was watching  TV) , “Naan oru thadavai  sonna nooru thadavai sonna mathiri ( if I say it once, it is  equal to saying it a hundred times)”.

And we have this repulsive action by those fan(atic)s doing  an Abhisheka by milk  to the cut-outs, if any  favourite hero’s film crosses  100 days !!

As kids, if we were a bit precocious (compared to the manner in which some kids make statements these days, those were nothing!!), the elders in the home would say,

“Nootrukkizhavi maathiri pesaathe!”(Don’t talk as if you are a hundred year old woman, that is, as though  possessing the wisdom of a hundred year old woman. I wonder why they never said ‘hundred year old man’, when my brother or cousin brothers spoke in a similar manner. May be, even at hundred, few men have any wisdom left!! Ha! Ha! )

When my Mother got married, she was just thirteen years. She had completed 7^th standard (2nd Form, those days).My father was working in the Idukky District in Kerala and would be away from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. He was keen on improving her English and made her read the old Classics. She had to read ten pages every day, of  Dickens or Scott or Dumas-and write the summary of those pages in her own words in two pages.  At night, he would correct this and all the spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes would be corrected by asking her to write the same a hundred times - ‘ imposition  ‘- as it was called. She did, without a murmur. But it really paid off. Her English was very good! In her later years, she was an inveterate Cross-word Fan and Scrabble Player, specializing in 2-letter words.

When we refer to anything that is unadulterated, we say 100% Pure.

When we post recipes, 100 is used as a relative term ;we quote the measurement as grams…say, 100 grams of something and then the rest of the ingredients as per 100 grams , like, say, two table spoons of sugar for every hundred grams of the flour, etc. etc.  

We refer to the nutritive values of the cereals or cooked dishes too with the basic Hundred grams like Protein / Starch per 100 grams etc.

At a function or any gathering, if there is a sizeable crowd, we say, “Around a hundred would have been present.”

Or a travel distance, “Perhaps a hundred kilo meters.”

This one, I read in a Web… “All about Wellness and Beauty” ---

“Every night, without fail, reaffirm your self 100 times -“I am confident and attractive.” Night time affirmations are most effective because the time before you sleep, your subconscious mind will absorb the message more easily.”

 Yet to try it! By the time I count forty (Not sheep. Ahem, you may wake up in the morning bleating ‘meh  meh…’ ), I pop off to sleep!

“On August 18^th 2004, after bringing India it’s first ever Silver at the Olympics since Independence, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said that the atmosphere at the Markopoulo Shooting Centre was so tense that he  “died a hundred times.”

Now let us see some other facts I got from the net –

*Sum of the first nine prime numbers is 100.

*100 degrees Celsius is the boiling temperature of pure water at sea level.

*The number of tiles in a standard Scrabble board is 100.

*Audi 100 is a mid-sized automobile which was produced by Audi from 1968  to 1997.

*Julius Caesar was born in the year 100 B C (100 B C to 44 B C).

*The Hundred Year War actually stretched from the year 1337 A D to 1453  A D , that is, 116 years.

*Many would have read the book, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia    Marquez.

*The “100 Club” is a Music Venue at 100, Oxford Street in London.

*Buddhist Texts were translated into Chinese in the year 100 A D.

*The “Temple of the God of Medicine” was built in Anguo - China , in the year 100A D. 

 In the Indian families, you can see the Priests or elders blessing the younger ones…
 
“May you live a hundred years”…

  “SatamaAnam  bhavathi  satAyur…”

Oh!,by the way, this is my  100^th Blog !

Thank you  Sulekha and  Sulekhans , for making me a Centurion.

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