Emperor Akbar once ruled over India. He was a wise and intelligent ruler; and he had in his court the Nine Gems, his nine advisors, who were each known for a particular skill. One of these Gems was Birbal, known for his wit and wisdom. The story below is one of the examples of his wit. Do you have it in you to find the answer?
One day the Emperor Akbar stumbled on a small rock in the royal gardens and momentarily went off balance. He was in a bad mood that day and the incident only served to make him more angry. Finding a target for his mood of the day, he ordered the gardener's arrest and execution. Birbal heard of this and visited the gardener in the cell where he was being held awaiting execution. Birbal had known the gardener for many years and also knew of the gardener's immense respect and sense of loyalty for the king. He decided to help the gardener escape the death sentence and explained his plan to the gardener, who reluctantly agreed to go along.
The next day the gardener was asked what his last wish was before he was hanged, as was custom. The gardener requested an audience with the emperor. This wish was granted, but when the man neared the throne he tried to attack the emperor. The emperor was shocked and demanded an explanation. The gardener looked at Birbal, who stepped forward and explained why the gardener had attacked the emperor. The emperor immediately realised how unjust he had been and ordered the release of the gardener. How did Birbal manage this?
"Your Majesty," said Birbal, "there is probably no person more loyal to you than this unfortunate gardener. Fearing that people would say you hanged him for a silly reason and question your sense of justice, he went out of his way to give you a genuine reason for hanging him."
A man lives on the 44th floor of his building. On rainy days, when he gets home from work, he takes the elevator all the way up to his floor. But on sunny days, he goes up to floor 20 and walks the rest of the way. Why does he do this?
The man is a midget and cannot reach button "44" in the elevator on sunny days. On rainy days he has his umbrella with him and is able to use it to press the button.
A witch owns a field containing many gold mines. She hires one man at a time to mine this gold for her. She promises 10% of what a man mines in a day, and he gives her the rest. Because she is blind, she has three magic bags who can talk. They report how much gold they held each day, and this is how she finds out if men are cheating her. Upon getting the job, each man agrees that if he isn't honest, then he will be turned into stone. So around the witch's mines, many statues lay!
Now comes an honest man named Garry. He accepts the job gladly. The witch, who didn't trust him said, "If I wrongly accuse you of cheating me, then I'll be turned into stone."
That night, Garry, having honestly done his first day's job, overheard the bags talking to the witch. He then formulated a plan... The next night, he submitted his gold, and kept 1.6 pounds of gold. Later, the witch talked with her bags. The first bag said it held 16 pounds that day. The second one said it held 5 pounds. The third one said it held 2 pounds. Beaming, the witch confronted Garry. "You scoundrel, you think you could fool me. Now you shall turn into stone!" the witch cried. One second later, the witch was hard as a rock, and very grey-looking. How did Garry brilliantly deceive the witch?
Garry put 2 lbs. in bag #1. 3 lbs. were put in bag #2. 11 lb. were put into bag #3. He then put bag #2 into bag #3, and bag #1 into bag #2. The bags only felt the weight of the gold above it. Thus they inadvertently gave the message that 23 lbs. were taken.
A man is found dead in the desert. He is wearing only his underwear. Half of a straw is found nearby.
How did this man die?
The man was flying in a hot-air balloon with another man over the desert. The balloon started to go down because of excess weight. Both men would die if they ended up stranded in the desert, so they stripped down to their underwear and threw their clothes off the balloon to try to reduce the weight. Unfortunately, that didn't work well enough. So they drew straws to decide who would jump. The dead man pulled the short straw and jumped out of the balloon.
A couple went on holiday for three weeks. They carefully locked their house, and had a neighbor check on the place while they were gone. When they returned, the wife was distressed to lean that because of a power failure she had lost all her fine jewelry. She had hidden the jewelry in what she thought was a very safe place. She was not robbed. Her jewelry was lost by accident. Why?
In this true incident, the wife had hidden her best jewelry inside her freezer in a bag among all the frozen food. Because of a general power failure the freezer had gone off. A friendly neighbour (who had a key in order to water the plants) had tried to be helpful by throwing out all the bad food - and with it went the jewelry.
A man puts on a clean shirt every night before bed. On the first nigh he puts on a blue shirt. He than sleeps for 5 hours. Every one hour more he sleeps than the night before he put on a different color shirt the next night according to this scale: blue, black, red, green, white, pink, orange, brown, purple, yellow, grey, neon green, tan, and teal. Every one hour less he sleeps than the last night he put on a different color shirt the next night going backwards on his scale.
If he were to wear a blue shirt because he slept more hours than the last night he does. If it was because he slept less hours than the night before he skips it and wears a teal shirt instead. If he goes backwards on the scale and goes to blue but would not wear a blue shirt he still counts blue in his going backwards on his scale.
The second night the man wears a blue shirt because he did not sleep any more or less hours than the last night. The man sleeps for six hours that night.
The next night he sleeps for five hours.
Night number four he sleeps for eight hours.
The next night he sleeps for seven hours.
The next night he sleeps so well he sleeps for 11 hours.
Night number seven he stays up so late he only sleeps for four hours.
The next night he is so tired he sleeps for eight hours.
The next night he sleeps for eight hours again.
Night number ten he sleeps for 14 hours because he is sick.
Since he slept so long the last night he only sleeps for seven hours.
The next night he is a little bit tired so he sleeps for eight hours.
The night after that he had to do so much work he only slept five hours.
The next night at work they let him out early and he slept for nine hours.
The next night he slept for eight hours.
And the last night the man did he slept for ten hours.
The next night he put on a different color shirt according to his scale, but the next night he randomly picked a shirt. At what night will the man wear a blue shirt again?
