posted January 22, 2003 12:16 AM         

"What is Space Vault?" Vittal asked me, very pointedly.

"Why me? What has that got to with me?" I asked him.

"You were telling riddle."

"Parrot one?"

"That's it"

"It goes like this. One parrot is enclosed in trap. Covered all sides. Cage is made of fibre. How would it escape?"

"By biting fibres and..."

"Wait, first thing it doesn't have teeth and fibre is strong it can't be removed by teeth or beak."

"It would escape through Space vault."

"What makes you think so?"

"Occam's razor. For anything, solution will be simple."

"I don't know whether this is simple solution, yet it is wrong. I didn't tell you anything about parrot."

"Ok. What is solution?"

"It is like this. Cage is made of fibre, so it belongs to some tribesman - when he is walking along he had accident and fell. There was problem and cage ruptured, parrot flew away."

He stared at me icily, in full fury.

"I never heard answers like this for riddle. What did parrot do?"

"Nothing. How would you know what it is doing? It is inside cage."