Birbal the Wise - XV
Situation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.
Emperor Akbar once ruled over India. He was a wise and intelligent ruler. He had in his court the Nine Gems, his nine advisors, who were each known for a particular skill. One of these Gems was Birbal, known for his wit and wisdom. The story below is one of the examples of his wit. Do you have it in you to find out the answer?
Once, Emperor Akbar wanted to test how Birbal would save himself from humiliation in front of the whole court. He instructed his servants to place a number of eggs in the pond in the royal gardens.
Very slyly, he placed one less egg than the number of courtiers. The next day, he sent his courtiers one by one to the pond and said he had hidden eggs spread out in the pond.
All his courtiers returned with an egg in their hand, one after the other. The emperor then sent Birbal last as he knew there wouldn't be any eggs left by then.
Sure enough, Birbal couldn't find any eggs in the pond. How did he save himself from embarrassment and humiliation?
Answer
He simply walked into the court crowing like a rooster! He said since he was a rooster, he was not meant to come up with eggs, be it hidden ones or otherwise! The Emperor realized that it was impossible to humiliate Birbal and his respect and love for Birbal only grew after this incident.
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Comments
cuteandditzy   
Jan 24, 2007
| Very creative!  |
Sand-Storm
Jan 25, 2007
| Didn't get ans. but very good teaser |
OldChinaHand
Jan 26, 2007
| A most enjoyable teaser...well told.  |
4demo
Jan 26, 2007
| Another great Birbal teaser- keep them coming!
I had to admit that my first thought was that Birbal would say "the egg hatched and the shell dissolved" or something, but good answer all the same. |
xdbtcp 
Jan 26, 2007
| I was with 4demo, but I thought he'd come in carrying a duckling or something... |
scallio
Jan 26, 2007
| Where do you come up with these ideas!?
I could only think that perhaps he'd say his egg had hatched already or been eaten. Wouldn't his crowing like a rooster be an embarassment to the court? I would be humiliated at having to crow in front of everyone! Ha!  |
coolcow35
Jan 27, 2007
| I have no idea how you keep coming up with these, but they sure do keep entertaining me. |
Dishhead5
Jan 31, 2007
| nice one from brainster... can you submit more birbal ones, ive solved the rest sorry :tongue: |
peanut
Feb 07, 2007
| He saved himself from embarrassment and humiliation by walking in, crowing like a rooster, flapping his arms and making fun of the emperor's order...
What ? ! ? ! ? ! ?   |
LeafFan4life
Feb 28, 2007
| what!!!that was very weird but of course if that were me i would have took a egg from a birds nest or even weirder he could have got one from a lady...but that is crazy....but probably not as crazy as acting like a rooster in a court in font of a king!!wow! also he could have just laid an egg himself or steal an egg sandwich from someone you know like a normal person... |
deepsea
Mar 01, 2007
| i thought that he told the emperor that he gave up and asked the emperor to find it. |
nerdyiscool
May 16, 2007
| I have sucessfully completed all of the birbals! Well I gave up on most of them, but... There need to be more. I wish I could create riddles... |
SandUtil
Jun 08, 2007
| I like these Birbal ones.  I just discovered them. |
zembobo
Jun 04, 2008
| So Birbal was reduced to pretending he was a rooster? That sounds pretty humiliating and emarrasing to me..I don't get the answer at all. To me, we would have been much better off just saying that his egg must have hatched or something. |
avnibavishi1
Jul 01, 2008
| To those of you who are wondering how he came up with the birbal teasers....
Birbal stories are very popular stories in india, as all of them are true (according to legend)...my guess is that he has a birbal story book, and puts the story into puzzle form....
nice job, and great idea!! ive read the stories, so i knew all your answers, but i never thought of birbal stories as puzzles!! loved them all! |
sammyfish
Jul 18, 2008
| I'm with xdbtcp - go ducklings!
Anyway - crowing like a rooster would be pretty humiliating, lets face it, this one needs a bit more work! |
bookwrmKP
Dec 06, 2008
| Wouldn't crowing like a rooster be embarrassing enough? Also, I'd be pretty embarrassed if I was king and one of my subjects came into court crowing like a rooster! |
sylvalant
Jan 10, 2009
| I'd rather be slightly embarassed than be acting like a chicken in front of all the people. |
rp2x1
Nov 06, 2009
| that makes absolutely no sense and actually weakens Birbal's intellectual aura. I guess it's true because the author says it's true, but crowing like a rooster in no way shows a logical or creative explanation to "fool" the king who tried to fool him. Birbal's wit is predicated on him being able to "turn the tables" on whoever is trying to trap him. This does not even approach that. Sorry, I know the author for all of these is the same, but this one just doesn't belong with the rest of the lot. |
donaldtrumpet
Jun 04, 2012
| You know, half of the birbal the wise teasers are really amazing and entirely fun. The other half is just entirely terrible. This would be one of the entirely terrible ones. |
Candi7
Jun 21, 2012
| ROOSTERS don't lay eggs CHICKENS do!
P.S. That's SAVING yourself from humiliation? More like PURPOSELY humiliating yourself! |
DarylK
Jun 28, 2012
| what this was impossible. |
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