Birbal was jester, counsellor, and fool to the great Moghul emperor, Akbar.
The villagers loved to talk of Birbal's wisdom and cleverness,
and the emperor loved to try to outsmart him.
One day Akbar (emperor) drew a line across the floor.
"Birbal," he ordered, "you must make this line shorter, but you cannot erase any bit of it."
Everyone present thought the emperor had finally outsmarted Birbal.
It was clearly an impossible task.
Yet within moments the emperor and everyone else present had to agree that Birbal had made the line shorter without erasing any of it.
How could this be?

The King of a distant land had heard that Birbal was one of the wisest men in the East and so desired to meet Birbal. He sent Birbal an invitation to visit his country.

In due course, Birbal arrived in the distant kingdom. When he entered the palace he was flabbergasted to find not one but six kings seated there. All looked alike. All were dressed in kingly robes. Who was the real king?

The very next moment he got his answer. Confidently, he approached the king and bowed to him.

How did Birbal know who was the real king?

Only one color, but not one size,
Stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies.
Present in sun, but not in rain,
Doing no harm, and feeling no pain.
What is it?

Can you spot the hidden girl in the picture below?

Manish and Manoj play 5 games of chess.
Both Manish and Manoj win the exact same number of games. There is no tie at all.

How?

What is the next number in this series?

4,12,84,3612....

I am an eight letter word and I am a computer terminology.
The second, third and fourth letters make an animal.
The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth letters make a weapon.
The first, second, third and fourth letters can be taken as an outcome of any exam.
The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth letter combine to form a high end typing software.

Can you tell who am I ?

Find a 9-digit number, which you will gradually round off starting with units, then tenth, hundred etc., until you get to the last numeral, which you do not round off. The rounding alternates (up, down, up ...). After rounding off 8 times, the final number is 500000000. The original number is commensurable by 6 and 7, all the numbers from 1 to 9 are used, and after rounding four times the sum of the not rounded numerals equals 24.

A man was telling some of his war stories to his grandchildren.
"When the World War I was on the verge of end, I was awarded for my bravery for I had saved a group of my men." He coughed and then added, "When we were fighting in northern France, an enemy soldier threw a grenade at us. Before it could explode, I picked it up and threw it away. For my act of bravery, right before the war ended, A General gave me a sword engraved with the words "Awarded for Display of Bravery and Heroism in World War 1"."

Hearing this, one of the grandson spoke up. "Grandpa, this is not a true story. It can"t be true!"

The truth is that it was not. How did the grand children know it?

A monk has a very specific ritual for climbing up the steps to the temple. First, he climbs up to the middle step and meditates for 1 minute. Then he climbs up 8 steps and faces east until he hears a bird singing. Then he walks down 12 steps and picks up a pebble. He takes one step up and tosses the pebble over his left shoulder. Now, he walks up the remaining steps three at a time which only takes him 9 paces. How many steps are there?