A man was convicted of a minor offence in Akbar court. Akbar decided to give him a chance. He asked him to give a statement. If the statement is true, he will be killed by lions and if it is false, he will be killed by trampling of wild elephants.

The convicted person requested help from Birbal and since the crime was not a big one, Birbal decided to help him. Whatever Birbal suggested impressed Kabir and he let the convicted person go.

What did Birbal suggest to the person?

I ask Joseph to pick any 5 cards out of a deck with no Jokers.

He can inspect then shuffle the deck before picking any five cards. He picks out 5 cards then hands them to me (Jack can't see any of this). I look at the cards and I pick 1 card out and give it back to Joseph. I then arrange the other four cards in a special way, and give those 4 cards all face down, and in a neat pile, to Jack.

Jack looks at the 4 cards i gave him, and says out loud which card Joseph is holding (suit and number). How?

The solution uses pure logic, not sleight of hand. All Jack needs to know is the order of the cards and what is on their face, nothing more.

John was going on a jungle trip. He asked his wife to pack something to eat, something to drink and something to burn if he feels cold in the jungle. When John opens the backpack he found just one thing in the bag. What was it?

You have two strings whose only known property is that when you light one end of either string it takes exactly one hour to burn. The rate at which the strings will burn is completely random and each string is different.

How do you measure 45 minutes?

One night, a man runs away from home. He turns left and keeps running. After some time he turns left again and keeps running. Later, he turns left one more time and runs back home—but when he gets home, he finds a man in a mask. Who was the man in the mask?

What does an Island and the letter T have in common?

Edward James went for tiger hunting.

It was not his lucky day.



He got six tigers without heads, nine tigers without the tail and eight cut in two halves.

How many tiger did he hunted ?

Two boys wish to cross a river. The only way to get to the other side is by boat, but that boat can only take one boy at a time. The boat cannot return on its own, there are no ropes or similar tricks, yet both boys manage to cross using the boat.

How?

Can you start the fire using two pieces of wood?

While house hunting in London, I came across a very good leasehold property Discussing the lease the landlady told me:

'The property was originally on a 99 years lease and two-thirds of the time passed is equal to four-fifths of the time to come. Now work it out for yourself and see how many years are to go!