If in a car race, the man who came two places in front of the last man finished one ahead of the man who came fifth, how many contestants were there?

In my garden, I have many trees but only one of them is the mango tree. In these mango trees, there are some mangoes(as expected).

But after a strong wind, there are neither mangoes on the tree nor on the ground. Explain?

When Jack was six years old he hammered a nail into his favourite tree to mark his height. Ten years later at age sixteen, Jack returned to see how much higher the nail was. If the tree grew by five centimetres each year, how much higher would the nail be?

What 8 letter word can have a letter taken away and it still makes a word. Take another letter away and it still makes a word. Keep on doing that until you have one letter left. What is the word?

It's a 7-letter word.
If we remove 1 letter from it, it remains the same.
If we remove 2 letters from it, it remains the same.
If we remove 3 letters from it, it remains the same.
If we remove all the letters from it, still it remains the same.
What is it?

I am a word of 12 alphabets.

* Alphabets 12, 4, 7, 2, 5 : Eastern beast of burden
* Alphabets 1, 8, 10, 9 are street made famous by Sinclair Lewis.
* Alphabets 11, 3, 6 are past.

On whole it means a person suffering from delusions of greatness.

What Is it ?

One fine day, an intellectual man came to the emperor's court with the aim of testing Birbal's wittiness. In order to do this, he challenged Birbal to answer his question and hence prove that he was as intelligent and witty as he was said to be.
He asked Birbal, Do you want me to ask one difficult question or a hundred easy ones?
Since both Akbar and Birbal had had a tough day and were eager to leave, Birbal hastily told the intellectual to ask him a single difficult question.
Intellectual: OK. Tell me what came first into the world, the egg or the chicken?
Of course, the chicken, Birbal replied with a smile.
This time with a note of victory in his voice, the intellectual asked Birbal, How will you demonstrate that?
What did Birbal say?

Two friends were stuck in a cottage. They had nothing to do and thus they started playing cards. Suddenly the power went off and Friend 1 inverted the position of 15 cards in the normal deck of 52 cards and shuffled it. Now he asked Friend 2 to divide the cards into two piles (need not be equal) with equal number of cards facing up. The room was quite dark and Friend 2 could not see the cards. He thinks for a while and then divides the cards in two piles.

On checking, the count of cards facing up is same in both the piles. How could Friend 2 have done it ?

What is next number in the pattern below:

131 517 192 123 ?

You have three orange, two pink and five purple balls in the drawer beside your bed. There is no electricity and the room is entirely dark. How many balls must you take out to ensure at least one ball of each colour at least?