Seven Maids and a Prodigy

Madhav and family were on their usual weekend short trip when Ramya mentioned what their son’s math teacher had said during the PTA meeting of that day. ‘Rohan is a prodigy.’

‘After all, he’s my son,’ Madhav said proudly as he looked at his son’s reflection in the rear-view mirror of the car. He was a computer software engineer while Ramya was only a bank clerk. Since Ramya had no doubt about her part in Rohan’s birth, she did not consider it necessary to stake a claim to it.

Madhav decided to assess his eleven-year-old son’s prodigy. But he could not remember any mathematical puzzle. He never had the habit of reading anything. Even as a student, he had not read anything other than course books. Computer wizards don’t need to read Shakespeare, he used to say with some pride. The only riddle that came to his mind was one from a short play that was part of his English course at college. It was about some Chinese king and the seven slaves of a noble man.* He didn’t remember the story but decided to try his hand at formulating the riddle in his own way.

‘There was a very rich man who divided all his property among his three sons before his death.’

‘Didn’t he have daughters?’ Rohan asked.

The question took Madhav by surprise. But it was Ramya who answered Rohan. ‘Your dad is a male chauvinist.’

‘Male chauvinists don’t have daughters?’ Rohan asked. Ramya did not answer that.

‘This rich man didn’t have daughters,’ Madhav said. ‘But he had a lot of maids. Maid servants, you know. There were seven of them who were very special.’

‘Why special?’ Rohan asked.

‘They were specially trained in manners and etiquette.’

‘Like Mukesh Ambani’s servants,’ Rohan remarked.

‘Huh? What’s that?’ Madhav was quite surprised.

‘It was in yesterday’s news that Mukesh Ambani’s servants get a monthly salary of Rs 2 lakh because they are all specially trained to look after the 27-storey Antilia and its handful of occupants.’

Madhav was now convinced that his son was indeed a prodigy. There was no need to continue with the riddle.

‘Dad?’

‘Hmm.’

‘The riddle.’

‘Oh, ok. The rich man had divided everything appropriately in his will and his sons had no complaint about anything. But when it came to the maids, there was a problem.’

‘A riddle,’ Rohan corrected his dad.

‘Yeah, a riddle. The will said that the eldest son should be given half of the maids, while the second son was to get one-fourth of the total number of maids and the youngest was to get one-eighth.’

‘Odd number and even divisions,’ Rohan said. ‘A puzzle indeed.’

‘How to divide the maids? The youngest son wouldn’t even get one whole maid! One-eighth of seven is a fraction less than one, you know.’

‘Around 0.9,’ Rohan said.

‘Every son was very much interested in the maids, specially trained as they were. How to solve the problem?’

‘Dad,’ Rohan said calmly.

‘Hmm.’

‘Quite easy. Half plus one-fourth plus one-eighth doesn’t add up to one. One-eighth will remain extra. We can solve the riddle easily with that extra.’

‘How?’ The computer engineer’s brain didn’t work that way at all. He recalled the old story in the English class. The hero of that story solved the problem by adding his girlfriend to the maids to make their number 8 and then giving half (4), one-fourth (2), and one-eighth (1) of the maids as stipulated to the three sons. And the eighth one was left behind for himself of course. Everyone was happy and they all lived happily ever after.

‘Your hero was a male chauvinist too,’ Rohan said.

Ramya giggled though she didn’t really understand what was going on especially what Rohan had said about the extra one-eighth.

‘Your hero could have solved the problem without bringing his girlfriend in at all. He could have rounded of half of 7 to 4, one-fourth to 2, and one-eighth to 1. Every son will get more than what his arithmetic would promise and he would have no reason to complain.’

That’s quite true, Madhav thought. Ramya wondered why this kind of solutions didn’t work in banking. If it had, clients would be very pleased to get that extra rounding-off!

‘It was an English teacher who taught us this riddle,’ Madhav said. ‘That’s why the girlfriend and so on.’

‘But Dad?’

‘Hmm.’

‘We rounded off three-and-a-half to 4, 1.75 to 2, and 0.9 to 1.’

‘Right.’

‘That means we added half plus a quarter plus 0.1 in the deal. That is, about 0.85. Less than one. So, where did your hero’s full girlfriend come from?’

Madhav was flabbergasted. ‘Your son is indeed a prodigy,’ he said to Ramya.

‘I thought you said he’s your son,’ Ramya winked.

The prodigy was laughing loudly and so he did not hear what his parents were saying. He thought they were working on his riddle now.

* The reference is to a short play, The Seven Slaves, written by A. Ball.