Make the Line Sorter

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?




Similar Riddles

John went to buy some expensive, foreign chocolates. He only had Rs 100 with him. When he reached the shop, he got out and know that on those chocolates, there was a 15% import duty and 5% VAT.

How much worth chocolate should he buy so that he can accommodate it in Rs 100?

Asked by Neha on 25 Oct 2024


Steffi's daughter Jazelle needs to be picked up from school every day.
Steffi asks one of her colleagues to pick up Jazelle from the school. Steffi devised a password system to confirm that Jazelle goes with the correct colleague only.

The password on Monday was SJM16.
The password on Wednesday was TAW39.

What will the password be for Friday?

Asked by Neha on 28 Jan 2026

You are given 2 eggs.
You have access to a 100-storey building.
Eggs can be very hard or very fragile means it may break if dropped from the first floor or may not even break if dropped from 100th floor, Both eggs are identical.
You need to figure out the highest floor of a 100-storey building an egg can be dropped without breaking.
Now the question is how many drops you need to make. You are allowed to break 2 eggs in the process

Asked by Neha on 12 Dec 2025


I can be cracked, made, told, and played. What am I?

Asked by Neha on 16 Aug 2025

John was piloting a plane behind a car but was never able to overtake it. Why?

Asked by Neha on 04 Dec 2023

What you cannot hold but it is yours?

Asked by Neha on 28 Dec 2024


How many points are there on the globe where, by walking one mile south, then one mile east and then one mile north, you would reach the place where you started?

Asked by Neha on 21 Apr 2022

There are five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) in the English language.
Can you tell us a word that contains all these vowels?

Asked by Neha on 20 Sep 2023

A farmer and his neighbour once went to Emperor Akbar"s court with a complaint. "Your Majesty, I bought a well from him," said the farmer pointing to his neighbour, "and now he wants me to pay for the water."
"That"s right, your Majesty," said the neighbour. "I sold him the well but not the water!"?
The Emperor asked Birbal to settle the dispute. How did Birbal solve the dispute?

Asked by Neha on 10 May 2021


A man had five children. He had $100 with him to give to his children. He decided to start with the youngest child and then give $2 more than each younger child to his next elder child.

For example, if he gives $x to the youngest child, he will give $(x+2) to the next one, $[(x+2) + 2] to the next one and so on.

Can you find out how much did the youngest one receive?

Asked by Neha on 30 Sep 2024

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has crushed all human records in the puzzle game “2048,” achieving a high score of 839,732 and beating the game in only 973 moves without using any undo.