Indian numbers seem almost as messy as Roman numerals though.

Verbally, the system seems to go thousand -> lakh -> crore -> thousand crore -> lakh crore, but then stop there, rarely extending to crore crore or inducting any farther.

Meanwhile commas don't seem to follow the verbal convention - instead showing up every two digits even after a crore, so a thousand crore looks more like ten hundred crore, and a lakh crore looks more like ten hundred hundred crore.

> Verbally, the system seems to go thousand -> lakh -> crore -> thousand crore -> lakh crore

Most people don't deal in these numbers, beyond the crores. And in sciences, exponential notation is norm anyway.

There's no way it is as messy as Roman numerals.

Crore is followed by 'Arab', not a thousand crore. The system also goes beyond 'Arab' but you won't normally encounter the higher terms.