THE OLD MAN AND HIS RIDDLES

THE OLD MAN AND HIS RIDDLES

A dozen children, some of them my school friends, were squatting in our lawn that summer evening facing the gentleman I will call ADP. He was sitting  in a comfortable  cane-chair puffing his cigar. He was visiting us from another town.

ADP was master of riddles and children loved him for that ! We looked forward to his visits.

He cleared his throat and began a new riddle . . .

"  . . . Jack used to keep all his socks, twenty black singles and twenty maroon singles - in all forty - in a small cardboard box near the shoe rack. . ."  ADP began. He looked at the kids. They were all very attentive.

" . . That night Jack was leaving for a party at his big boss's house. He was already late and the boss had phoned him. He picked up his shoes and as he was hurriedly opening the box of socks to pick up two socks of the same colour, total power failure occured. Darkness came."

ADP paused for effects, enjoying his cigar. The kids had inched closure in exitement, eyes wide open.

" . . . Jack needed two socks of the same colour urgently. He would put them on later when he reached the boss's house. Now the question is this : Jack cannot see the colour of the socks in total darkness. What is the minimum number of single socks that he  should pick up and rush to his car, along with his shoes? He has no time".

He did not have to wait. Answers came quickly

" He should carry the whole box" said Jaswant. He seemed to have missed the important requirement in the riddle - the MINIMUM.

" No ! ten will be the minimum " said Asha. She was a sweet seven year old neighbour.

And many more kids answered. . .  But they did not have the correct answer, none of them.

" Okay, I will tell you the answer in a while. But, first, here is another. . . . "

ADP was much older than my father. He was tall, with sharp features, sharp mind and a affable temperament. He had a booming voice which even Katwaroo, our cook, could hear in the far off kitchen.

Every visit of his made me richer by a few riddles or playing-card tricks. I still remember the trick of setting playing-cards for a magic card-game  which he had taught me in my childhood. It was done through  a secret rhymed phrase! Here it is :

"Eight kings threatened to save nine fair ladies for one sick knave". It helped me to set cards in this
order:   -8-K-3-10-2-7-9 -5 -Q-4- A-6-J .

"CHASED" was the memory code in which this arrangement was to be set by alternating Club Heart Spade and Diamond (Club Heart >A> Spade >E> Diamond = chased)!

For a long time through my childhood I baffled kids and adults alike by setting cards thus and, as they stole a card from the deck I would in a trice tell what card it was!

ADP had an infectious laughter and he would laugh and make us laugh after tricking us kids with riddles such as this :

"An electric train is running at 60 miles per hour  from Bombay (now Mumbai) heading south east toward Poona (now Pune). A wind is blowing from east to west at 30 mph. In what  direction will the smoke from the train's engine go?"

Why did ADP prefer the company of kids? Was he yearning to revisit his own childhood- a period of innocence, of hope and curiosity sans Cynicism? A child's life is so uncomplicated! And Children get pleasures out of small things of life!

Whatever may be the reason, the old gentleman enlivened the days of my own childhood, making them memorable even now - through the mist of the intevening decades !!