One day, all the courtiers from Akbar's court were gathered in the assembly hall when one of them told the Emperor that all his valuables had been stolen by a thief the previous night.
This shocked the Emperor to his core as the place where that courter stayed was the most secured in the kingdom. The Emperor thought that it is not at all possible for an outsider to enter into the courtier's house and steal the valuables. Only another courtier could commit this crime. He quickly called Birbal to identify the thief.
Birbal thought for a while and successfully solved the mystery by identifying the thief in just one statement.
What did Birbal say?
Pronounced as one letter,
And written with three,
Two letters there are,
And two only in me.
I am double, I am single,
I am black blue and grey,
I am read from both ends,
And the same either way.
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?
The day before the 1996 U.S. presidential election, the NYT Crossword contained the clue “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper,” the puzzle was built so that both electoral outcomes were correct answers, requiring 7 other clues to have dual responses.