The Three Important Questions

Thu August 4, 2011 by Kunal Bansal

The friendship and camaraderie between King Akbar and Birbal was growing by leaps and bounds. King was very fond of Birbal and used to consult him in the matters of state. Because of King?s fondness for Birbal, certain courtiers were very jealous of Birbal. Some of them always plotted to devise strategies to degrade Birbal in front of the king but nothing was working for them. Birbal was also the chief minister and one particular courtier among these jealous courtiers had his eyes on this post. During one of those days when Akbar was praising Birbal in front of the courtiers, that courtier got very angry and challenged Birbal if he could answer his three questions. He also expressed his displeasure at King praising Birbal every now and then and put forward a condition that if Birbal manages to answer all three of his questions he would readily accept Birbal?s intelligence. Akbar was also willing to test Birbal?s wits so he readily agreed. The questions were as follows,

How many stars are there in the sky? Where does the centre of the Earth exist? And, Definite number of male and females in the world. Birbal, as usual was up to the challenge and accepted the condition that if he does not manage to answer the questions he will resign as chief minister. For the first question, Birbal brought a hairy sheep in the court and claimed that number of stars in the sky is equal to number of hair on the sheep?s body. If the courtier does not believe me, he is free to count them. While answering the second question, he drew couple of straight lines on the floor and bore an iron rod in between them. Thereafter, he claimed this was in fact the centre of the earth and if the courtier has any doubts whatsoever, he is free to measure it accurately. The third answer was the most interesting one. Birbal expressed difficulty in counting exact number of males and females in the world as there were some people like courtier who could neither be termed males or females. So to count exact number of men and women, such people would have to be killed. Birbal?s wit and quick presence of mind managed to solve the problem easily and thus he continued being the chief minister.