Puzzling Solution to a Puzzle

It’s pure adrenalin rush when you see John McClane running around in narrow by-lanes trying to crack various riddles/puzzles so as to prevent a psycho terrorist from blowing up New York city. Ofcourse I am referring to the ‘ Die Hard’ movie with Bruce Willis playing the smart cop John McClane. I can watch this movie anytime any number of time – not so much because of its hero or the action quotient but more so because of the intricate interweaving of the plot with the puzzles/riddles which seems to have added that extra zing in an otherwise typical masala flick. Puzzles have fascinated me for all of my life and I regret that there is no daily hardcore ‘puzzle’ column in daily newspapers just as they have for crossword section. I have seen some of the smartest puzzles which I could never crack and then had to rely on other sources/ more intellectual friends for getting the solution. Many often than not, it’s the unique framing of the puzzle which adds the ‘grey’ quotient to the whole  conundrum than the solution itself. Words play an extremely significant role here and a slight slip of tongue can spoil the entire puzzle. A simple example that comes to my mind – A boy along with his father meets with a car accident and while the boy survives, his father dies on the spot. When the boy is brought to the hospital, the doctor upon seeing the boy exclaims – ‘He is my son’ – how is that possible?? Now I really have to confess here I couldn't crack this puzzle. The answer is so simple and I kept thinking all the various angles including some supernatural angles (a la ghost theories etc) to explain the riddle. But if you analyze the framing of the puzzle carefully, no where its mentioned or hinted that the doctor was a ‘female’ doc which makes the puzzle so simple to guess.

Alright so this blog is about one specific puzzle which I came across recently. This brainteaser is a simple, run of the mill arithmetic puzzle and I do enjoy cracking the underlying logic for such puzzles. So here it is as mentioned below –

If

8 + 8 + 8 = 6

6 + 6 + 6 = 3

1 + 1 + 1 = 0

3 + 3 + 3 = 3

4 + 4 + 4 = 3

What is 1 + 2 + 9?

What is 9 + 9 + 9?

What is 0 + 0 + 0?

My solution was as below –

1)      Divide each of the number by 4

2)      Rounds off any fraction to nearest whole number (keeping in mind ceiling/floor concept, .50 to be rounded off to its ceiling number)

3)      So with above logic, the answer comes out to be –

What is 1 + 2 + 9? = 2

What is 9 + 9 + 9? = 6

What is 0 + 0 + 0? = 0

So far so good. Now I have a good friend Supriya who likes to play around with puzzles a lot and I always share any good puzzle with her (especially if am unable to crack it as she is really good in cracking them anyhow). She replied back with same answers and I beamed with a smile as she too had corroborated my solution. But then things took a dramatic turn – when I asked her if she had used the same logic as I did (providing details as per above solution), she replied back in negative. I was absolutely intrigued – as I know there can be more than 1 solution to any given problem but not 2 approaches to same solution. Her solution was based on arithmetic progression as per below –

1)      First 2 numbers in natural numbers are assumed to be zero – so 1 and 2 both are equal to zero (1,2=0)

2)      Next 3 numbers are assumed to be 1 – so (3,4,5= 1)

3)      Next 4 numbers are assumed to be 2 – so (6,7,8,9=2)

4)      So with above logic, the answer comes out to be same as mine –

What is 1 + 2 + 9? = 2

What is 9 + 9 + 9? = 6

What is 0 + 0 + 0? = 0

I was really puzzled with the puzzle co-incidence here. It was a first for me that 2 different approaches produced same results. May be this is a freak co-incidence but still for me, this is a classic example of serendipity!

Daunting Endodontics!

Most of us hominids have 32 teeth in all. Well, let’s just say we have this instrument called tooth with which most of the mundane tasks such as eating, chewing, attacking (debatable) et all are done. So far this instrument is working fine in your body, you don’t even realize it exists, rather you don’t care it exists. The fun starts when the same tooth makes your life toothless, almost literally. As I realized this hard way, one of my ‘taken for granted’ teeth shifted its natural position and developed a cavity – this is similar to earth plates shifting deep below the ground leading to catastrophic Tsunami. The Tsunami which engulfed my mouth due to this cavity is called ‘Root Canal Treatment’ in medical lingo. I must swear – Dental fraternity was not in good mood when they formulated this treatment for us lesser mortals. Read on to find out why I made this teething statement about them…

“You have a void between your 2nd and 3rd molar” – these were the exact words of my dentist. I put together all my knowledge about English language to process this statement but to no avail. I asked back, trying to sound as smart as possible – “So doc, what would you recommend for me?” (I ain’t bad in pretending – somewhere I read that personality is the art of getting admired for qualities you don’t posses). The doc looked back at me and uttered very casually – “we would go for root canal treatment, as removal of your molars should be the last option”. These words sounded as if I have a last few days left to my life! My medically challenged brain once again started processing the term ‘Root Canal Treatment’ though I did hear a lot about it from many others. Before I could even ask my next question to the doctor, he was already ready with the fees he would charge me for this treatment. My jaws almost dropped after hearing the astronomical amount – 6000 bucks! I realized this is the precise reason that the Medical profession is never seen affected by recession. The thing with doctors is you can’t bargain with them as you would normally do in similar situations – ‘Hey doc, can you give me some discount as I am your repeat customer’ or ‘Doc, this is festival time man, give me some discount’. Somehow this culture of bargaining has not been applied to the medical fraternity, I strongly feel otherwise. I was further told that there will be 3 sessions to complete the treatment. I murmured to myself – so basically they would want you to endure the torture slow and steady – like the ‘Halal’ cut. 

I came back home with a heavy heart – took next 3 weeks to bring up all the courage to get started with the treatment. In my research on this topic during this time, I realized that this medical procedure (root canal) is invasive in nature (meaning they would invade your body in flesh and blood) and is a part of larger dental specialty called ‘Endodontics’ – Daunting Endodontics!

The D day arrived – my first session to face the Tsunami. I was told by the receptionist that the ordeal (she said process, I heard ordeal) would take about 30 minutes. After about 15 minutes of long wait, I was called in. As soon as I entered the dental room, all my fear came true or atleast, seemed to come true. Let me try to describe here what I saw and I leave it to the reader’s discretion to judge on my fear. That room had dim lighting, all the windows were covered with thick curtains through which no light could pass (yes, like a black hole), the shape and size of the room was just about enough to fit in one big sized elephant, in short - it was a dungeon. On three corners of the room stood 3 attendants, each one wearing a white mask and holding some kind of sharp instruments in their hands. The doctor himself was sitting in the middle of the room, face covered with white mask, his breathing sounding quite heavy and both his hands clutching a bunch of even sharper instruments. The 3 attendants were standing still in their respective positions (as if ready to attack the prey anytime), the doctor just signaled me to lie down on the special long sized chair (it looked more like an electric chair). I thought to myself – is this some kind of a trap? Am I being murdered? Why did they not check my BP as usually practiced my other docs? I haven’t even prepared my final will. Damn it. As I was checking these thoughts out, came a shrilling sound – yes, a high speed sharp edged drilling machine had started approaching my mouth. Fortunately the doctor finally spoke before the drilling machine could come any closer – ‘Just relax, this will have some sensitivity kind of pain initially. Please raise your hand if you feel too much of it’. What? Raise your hand! – is this some kind of game where you raise your hand upon someone’s elimination. I remember playing some such game in my school days. What if I get delayed in raising my hand by a few seconds or what if I raise my hand but the doc thinks I  am saying hi to him!  Nevertheless, the doc simply pulled the 2 ends of my ill-fated mouth with his hands and started injecting anesthetic liquid into the cavity (that injection needle was very awkwardly shaped, resembled an L shaped dagger to put it mildly). He sat back on his chair instructing me to let him know when I start feeling numbness in my mouth. By this time, I was quite convinced that I am being ‘eliminated’ in a cleverly orchestrated dental dissection. How else do you explain 4 masked people with sharp weapons in their hands holding you lying down in an extremely vulnerable position and waiting for you to pass out? As the local anesthesia kicked in, I felt numbness in my mind first and then in my mouth. The drill started – literally. First came in the drilling machine, then the pointed knife followed by some more injection of anesthesia and then some more sharper odd looking instruments – all of them going deep inside my mouth with no guarantee that they would come out ever. I was feeling occasional pain, clutched my fists, held on to myself, held on to my life and after 40 grueling minutes, was told to sit-up with my mouth still having no sensation. What I felt was that the built up psychology behind this whole thing psyches you up more than anything else. Probably I thought if my eyes were covered up too, I wouldn’t have felt as much pain since I wouldn’t know what’s going inside my agonized mouth.

I had the remaining 2 sessions done without as much pain as the 1st one. Root canal treatment should be introduced in Army commando training to test the Jawan’s physical and psychological endurance or it can be given out as a punishment for serious criminal offences. Such is the impact of surviving this treatment. I survived the trauma, I am recuperating, I promise I will write my next post with a better mind frame.

Corporate Mumbo Jumbo

The World Inc. has its own world to thrive in and the Corporate glitterati takes pride in defining its own ‘work’ culture which sometimes defies any known professional boundaries while at times borders on downright slapstick absurdity! But come what may, everyone who belongs to the Corporate echelon is confined to following these unspoken ‘rules’ and ‘laws’ lest they run the risk of offending the Corporate elite!! In my un-eventful career spanning more than a decade and half, I have become a partner in crime while embracing this ‘imposed’ culture and would like to recount and enumerate few of these Corporate tenets which have come to symbolize the white collared civilization and its idiosyncrasies. Here you go, my top 10 countdown –

10) While a normal homo sapiens would ‘start’ his day, a Corporate manager always looks ‘at the end of the day’. So while you have a meeting at 9AM on a dull Monday morning when your breakfast tea hasn’t even got settled down properly, you have your boss yelling at you when comes the most abused term from him - “…so team, no matter what you do or how you do it but at the end of the day, I want to see the result!!” and it goes on and on. I sometimes wonder, why wouldn’t a boss want the same results ‘at the middle of the day’ or ‘at the beginning of the next day’!! Seems it’s just a weapon in their huge armory to implant a psychological terror that if it doesn’t get delivered by the end of the day, it would be the end of the world for you, period.

9) Screaming at someone takes a whole new dimension in the eccentric Corporate world. Consider this – if you write a single word in CAPS in your mail (capital letters for the uninitiated), you are assumed to be screaming at the mail recipient. If the whole line is written in CAPS, you are assumed to be literally yelling at the recipient. I witnessed this screaming business being taken to a whole new level when I saw one particular mail (not directed at me) written in CAPS with red color font. I hope the recipient survived the mail and didn’t suffer a heart stroke!

8) You must have copied someone on your usual mails without much thought, right? Well, copying someone on your mail has its implicit connotations in this world. If you copy your boss while writing a mail to someone, you are trying to cover yourself. If you copy recipient’s boss, it means you are trying to escalate things. If you copy your direct report in your mail, you are delegating the work. If you copy no one in the mail, you are trying to ‘settle’ things with the recipient. Such is the power of carbon copy functionality while following the mail etiquette.

7) When is the last time you were ‘on the same page’ with your friend or your spouse or your parents? I am sure you haven’t exactly got that sentence per se and you are not to be blamed for that either. This ‘same page’ business is a must condition in the Corporate jungle. That’s right – you need to be on same page with everyone else while working with sundry and all. In plain language, it just means that there is a common understanding between you and the audience you are speaking to. Infact this is the most banal phrase dropped most often by the speaker in any regular meeting – “so gentlemen, are we all on the same page? “. It beats me to death to think why we always need to be same page? It smacks of herd mentality – if you are not on same page, you may be the odd one out. Someone was overheard blurting out in frustration “No - I am NOT on the same page with you, infact I am not even on the same paragraph, same chapter OR same book with you !!”

6) Acronyms play an important role on the Corporate planet. If you need to succeed in here, you got to be champion in mastering the short hand! When I first heard a top manager extolling the success the company has achieved, he went something like this “Team, FYI – our PAT for Q1 is $XYZ MM which is a jump of 10% YoY and 12% QoQ!! The GCCIT LoB has lauded our efforts and will be recognizing 5 FTEs in Q2 R&R”. In short, you need to master the art of the abbreviation (The word abbreviation itself needs an abbreviation!!)

5) “If you don’t improve your visibility, I am afraid I wouldn’t be able to elevate you” – there comes another term which is used by the wannabe managers to beat you up whenever they feel like. The term ‘Visibility’ in Corporate jargon signifies the impact of your performance on others (ideally, everyone in the organization). In other words, how famous you are in your office circuit determines how ‘Visible’ you are. Initially when I came across this term, I thought it was being referred to my ‘not so fair’ complexion – “Deven, you are not quite visible off late” – I took it as “Deven, you have darkened off late – or - are you into tanning business or something?” Now as I understand this term better, it has an added connotation – your visibility is directly proportional to the amount of 'shoulder rubbing' you have with the high and mighty in the organization. Well, if you ask me honestly - I am not 'visible' to even my wife yet!!

4) When it comes to having a telephonic meeting, the mention of ‘Mute’ business can’t be missed out. Put simply, every phone instrument has a ‘Mute’ button. Typically in an official telephonic meeting, everyone keeps himself on mute (hence inaudible) while the speaker of the meeting speaks up. One of the most common scene is when one of the attendants starts speaking up but without ‘un-muting’ himself. If there is a prolonged silence in the call, in all probability its due to someone speaking up while on mute. Someone from the audience has to then check with the team if anyone is speaking on ‘mute’. This business reached its height once when in one such meeting, there was a prolonged silence. Then there was some further prolonged silence. Suddenly a voice was heard “ Sorry guys I was checking if anyone speaking up while in mute but I realized I myself was on mute” !

3) OOO – if you have got good with abbreviations by now, then you should be able to get this one. OOO refers to ‘Out of Office’ and refers to an automatic email reply when someone switches on this functionality in his mail (while being not available in office). In my prolific experience dealing with mail etiquette, I have come to realize that the OOO message reflects the personality of the sender. Shorter the OOO message, higher in the hierarchy that person is – “On business trip, reachable on cell” indicates the sender is a heavy weight. If the OOO message runs in 10 lines, the sender is from some operation support team (for A, contact X; for B, contact Y and so on). If the OOO message is somewhat risqué, the person belongs to the HR department. If the OOO message has the minutest details such as what time and second the sender will be back in office, mostly that guy is from Finance team. One of the most ‘effective’ OOO message I came across recently – “I am out of office for this whole week. My replies will be delayed OR may not be replied at all” !!

2) A couple of talking points which are extremely common in Corporate meetings and I can’t miss mentioning them here – 1) Weather talk – yes, that’s right. The easiest way to break ice in a meeting with others or to start the conversation in an informal way is to talk about weather. This is more prominent when the callers (in a telephonic meeting) are in different countries – that makes it much more meaningful than when the 1st caller in 'Ramnagar' is asking about weather condition to the 2nd caller who is in 'Lakshman Nagar', if you know what I mean. 2) Weekend plan – this is another point of discussion more pronounced especially if you speaking with someone from the West. I am amazed to see that some people have an elaborate answer to offer when asked about their weekend plan. It’s as if they live just for the weekends!

1) Most oft repeated phrases or words –

a) I really appreciate your help here

b) My calendar is up-to-date

c) Placeholder for a meeting

d)Leadership (everyone is supposed to be a leader), team spirit/synergy/motivation (nothing can move without the ‘team’)

e) Customer/client comes first

f) ASAP, +1, w.r.t, PFA, PFB, EoD, TBD, IMO, AFIK, URGENT (in subject line), TL;DR

g) and the deadliest – “Boss is always right”

Long live the Corporatti!!

Die Another Day !

It’s been a while I wrote anything on the blog and I was feeling the literary ‘pinch’ for not taking up the mighty pen, err mighty keys (on the keyboard you silly) for a while. It also dawned upon me that my writing has been noticed and appreciated by a few good souls from highly unexpected quarters which gave me enough thrust to take up the mighty pen and resume my blog journey. Also I thought it would be a good omen to start the new year with a blog, which might provide me with enough life fuel in the form of creative catharsis which everyone of us so much long and crave for. This time around I thought of a subject which has been lingering around in my intellectual landscape for quite a while and it’s about a few life experiences which can be categorized as ‘once in a lifetime’ episodes and had me on the edge of life literally. Even though they are hair raising experiences which I went through involuntarily, I found it fun to recall and write them down. I said ‘fun to write them down’ as I have increasingly found it difficult to pen my writings on things which are presumably grave in nature – like politics, philosophy etc. May be I will take some more maturing up to develop a taste for them in writing them down. On second thoughts, I do have a taste for them but somehow haven’t found them palatable enough to be jotted down in ink (err in keystrokes). But for now, back to what I wanted to write about – a few unique life experiences which happened to me over the last 30 years or so (keep guessing my age) and have left an indelible mark on my psyche – some of them were life threatening – some of them were pure fun – some of them are just mentioned here with no particular purpose. Of course there are a few experiences which can be categorized as ‘heavenly or celestial’ which I can’t describe verbatim here for obvious reasons, so I will keep them for my ‘underworld’ writing (yes, I do have one and subscription to it is by invitation only!!). For the rest of the world, here I go –

How I met your mother ? - Part 1

The idea of this blog came from an American TV serial with the same name which is a popular if not a superhit sitcom from their regular lot and is aired on CBS if I can recall correctly (and on Star World in India). In fact I am a big fan of the female protagonist in the serial played out by a hot Canadian actress named Coby Smulders. I guess she has even starred in some Hollywood movies. Anyways, so back to my story – ‘How I met your mother’ is a simple but sweet story I would like to pass on to my progeny (2+ years old now) which would serve him as a proof that his dad wasn’t as boring and unromantic as he would like to believe when he grows up !! So here goes my son - your dad’s ONLY romantic venture which met with 100% success (needless to say the previous attempts were all big time flops and may not even qualify to be called ‘attempts’ at winning over fairer sex during his pre marital struggling days!)

Cut to December 2002. It all started with the news that one of my cousins Yogesh is all set to get married in a remote place called ‘Aamgaon’, a small hamlet near Gondia which is a town near Nagpur which is a city in the geographical center of India, a country in the....(talk about my geographical senses or lack of it!). Initially I had no plans to witness the marriage in person as I am really averse to attending family functions (I hate relatives!) and that too in a hamlet with no probability of even getting a mineral water bottle made me think twice. But a phone call from my parents did the trick – they informed me that they have received a prospective ‘Rishta’ which has come for me from a respectable family settled in Bhilai (a town near the same hamlet which is near ...well you got the idea!!) . My plans to visit the hamlet to attend cousin’s marriage got sealed with my sis sharing the insider info that the girl’s pic (which had landed in her hand as part of initial exchange of ladka/ladki’s biodata/horoscope between the 2 families) was simply ‘outstanding’ and that I should not miss the trip at any cost. So what was the common thread between the hamlet story and the prospective ‘rishta’ stuff – the Bhilai family was a close relatives of the Aamgaon’s bride family and would be present in full attendance in the December marriage in the hamlet and that I would have a chance to meet up with the ‘girl’. Considering my state of mind during that time, it was nothing short of a visit to ‘Mecca Medina’. Meanwhile my sis sent me the soft copy of girl’s pic which made my resolve to visit the hamlet stronger even if it meant risking my precious life due to the absence of potable water (well mineral water I mean!). So my son – your dad went all the way to a remote hamlet to meet your mother inspite of huge perceived threat to his life!! Please be always proud of this fact about your dad and yes, the first moral of the story for you is – a hamlet without the availability of mineral water is the best place to find your girl..!!

December 6th 2002 – I set off for the hamlet from Nagpur in a privately rented bus along with all the Baraatis for my cousin’s marriage. I had mixed thoughts with a good possibility that the whole boy/girl meet affair might just not even happen (too many factors play a role here if you follow the arranged marriage process closely). The Baraat reached the hamlet after an arduous 5 hours bus journey with most of the road being dusty and broken. My first impression about the hamlet was not that bad though – it was a kind of beautiful countryside dotted with a horizon line made up by steep rock hills all around. The flip side was - the roads were ‘pugdandis’ (can’t define this word, you ought to see it yourself to get the right definition) with most of the houses made out of red bricks (‘Kavelus’ in Hindi) and cows/cattle grazing at regular distances but since I was on a mission here, I braved all the odds without uttering a word. The Baraatis got busy in settling down in the ‘Janwasa’ which is a designated high area given out to them for getting ready for the evening marriage ritual. I, along with my father had already got to meet my prospective father in law which at least confirmed the ‘meet’ in the evening function. While the Baraat was getting ready for the marriage, I took out some time and went to a nearby hill rock with a few of my baraati gang members and really enjoyed the fresh breeze of air which is so rare in a cosmopolitan surrounding.