Greetings, Earthlings. You are being addressed by the Vulturo, Prince Of Darkness, an unimaginably evil being, who is known to masquerade as Saket Vaidya, the Social Media Analyst at Webchutney. And today, he shall share with you, an excellent game which you can play to sharpen your grey cells, and among other things, waste your time.
Webchutney has always been a company full of smokers, and of that, we are quite proud. The Mumbai Office, until very recently, was a free-smoking zone. The healthy cigarette consumption ensured that at least a 100 odd ITC employees were assured of their daily bread and butter through the fauj’s benevolence, alone.
There is an unwritten law which states that the availability of matches is inversely proportional to the quantum of cigarettes being smoked, and at times, it leads to chronic matchstick shortages. Often, when one fauji asked another for a light, he got a response “Yaar light ki fight hai” (Fight hai, is standard chutney lingo, by the way).
And then the inevitable happened. Like all good things, happy times for smokers at Chutneyplex Mumbai came to an end, when the powers that be declared “Thou shalt not smoke anywhere, but in the Kitchen”. Cigarette consumption reduced, and due to the aforementioned law, the fauj was forced to deal with a matchstick surplus.
Then came along Anirban Biswas, the SEM superstar at Chutney, who invented an extremely invigorating game called Webchutney Light Fight™ which achieved the twin objectives of productively utilising the matchstick surplus, and sharpening one’s intellect.
The game, which is meant to be played against each other by two people, goes thusly: You take fifteen matchsticks. You arrange them in three rows: The first, second and third rows containing three, five, and seven matchsticks respectively.
Subsequent to which, your opponent is invited to pick up one or more matchsticks, with the condition that all the matchsticks which are picked up must belong to one row (e.g. one may choose to pick four matchsticks from row three, or just one match stick from row one, or even all the matchsticks from row two. Or anything else for that matter, you get the drift)
After your opponent is done and it is your turn, you pick any number of matchsticks provided they are all from the same row. That done, your opponent is again invited to play his turn and and the game continues indefinitely in this fashion, the person who picks up the last remaining matchstick being the loser.
In order to win the game, you must pick up your matchsticks in such a way that you leave the last matchstick on the board for your opponent (e.g. The game has proceeded to a stage where there is a single matchstick on row one, and three matchsticks on row two. You pick up all the three matches on row two and leave your opponent stranded with the solitary matchstick on row one)
The Mumbai faujis deeply engrossed in a game of Webchutney Light Fight™
Anirban Biswas and Vikram Gahlot have devoted considerable research to this game and have developed a secret algorithm which helps them apply superior strategies to ensure that they never lose against lesser opponents, no matter if they play first or second. If you feel that you have it in you to beat them, please feel free to throw in the gauntlet.
The team at Mumbai is, in fact, contemplating requesting the powers that be, to make sure that all future faujis have to prove their skills at WCLF as a mandatory part of the interview process.
So, if you plan to seek a job at Webchutney anytime soon, start practising. Here’s to happy playing!
