The 12 Balls Problem

        Guys I am back with an old real life problem, which is not yet solved. As the name of the blog says, its obviously about the 12 Balls Problem. But this blog is not just about the famous mathematical problem. This blog is about the problem this mathematical problem created in my life. The actual 12 balls problem obviously has solution. Click the link for  Solution.
        I had a friend Murli in Onmobile Bangalore mentioned in another of my posts Swimming and KLPD Switch. He was the most intelligent friend I had. Everyone even believed in his intelligence. But he had superiority complex with others. He wanted everyone to accept that he is better than them. Many did, so did I, to keep the environment of the group healthy. Murli and I were sort of bully in the office group. I was sensitive to some extent. I made sure nobody was hurt in the process. But Murli wasn't.
        Murli, I, my college friend Raj and 3 more friends, who joined the company together rented a row house together. Raj and I even shared a room, as we were friends from college. Also Raj was the most respected guy in the batch. So when Murli used to bully Raj, I used to jump in defense. Either I diverted the bullying on someone else or Murli himself or sportingly took it on me. Most of the time Murli and I shared common side in arguments.
        Murli was interviewed in Adobe in his college days. He was given this 12 balls problem to solve. But he could not solve it that time even in half an hour, probably due to interview stress. When he narrated me this interview story, I asked him to let me try the 12 balls problem before he gives me the solution. He peacefully let me because he knew I couldn't solve it and started watching TV. I tried my level best on the problem because I myself am a curious puzzle solver. But.
        After few minutes, I went to Murli. I went to Murli, luckily, with the solution. He looked at his watch. It was hardly 12 minutes that I took to solve the 12 balls problem. He was shit shocked. For the first time in 6 months I had known him, I saw him so shocked.
        That day was the last day Murli was good to me. He couldn't accept somebody being as intelligent as he is. After the incident, whatever the topic is, he chose the opposite side. If I said anything good about SRK, our favorite topic, he opposed. When I bullied anyone he came in their defense against me. For the initial few days, I let him say bitter things to me, which was not actually bullying, but offending. But after a week, my limit was reached. I made Murli have a taste his own medicine. He and I stopped hanging out without any third person. Being in the same house and same company hardly 10 meters away, we did not had friendly interactions, though I was always open to it. I initiated several times but he took least interest in having fun then to compete. But we did had a healthy competition.
        Everyone in the house knew something is fishy between Murli and I. No one liked the atmosphere in the house. Rest of the 4 members became a part of everyday fight. Everyday 6 of us quarreled for some minor things. The house use to get partitioned into 2 groups and obviously Murli and I on different side. He stayed in the side I was not. He jumped in any of my discussion with others and made it a debate. The house did not remained the problem between 2 people but problem of 6 people. The 6 people problem or the 12 balls problem.
        Six months later Murli got offer from Amazon Hyderabad. On his last day in our house, we slept in the same room. We kept silent for hours. But something clicked, I broke the silence and we started chatting in the dark. He told me that he always knew I always defended Raj from getting bullied. I told him that we have been quarreling for last 6 months; and I know the reason what spoiled our friendship is the 12 balls problem. He admitted it as well that his ego was hurt by the feeling that he is not truly the greatest brain in his circle. He tried his ass out to crack Amazon to prove this. I was happy that something positive came out from it, in the end.
        Conclusion to the friendship is that Murli, Raj and I all are currently in NCR for more than an year, hardly few kms apart, and we all know it; but Raj and I haven't met Murli yet.

And they think Indians play politics

Sorry Americans in the very beginning, but I am having a very hard time working with you guys.

        I joined this company (MNC) 3 months ago. The project I was assigned to, is the first project of the company, which was driven stand-alone from India. So it is a matter of prestige to finish the project on time. My team consisting of 6 developers, 4 quality analysts, one architect and one manager, who is scrum master as well, are working very hard to finish the project on time. The architect and 2 senior developers, including me, are new in this company. We have very limited knowledge of the legacy services, codes and database tables. Even after so many hurdles, we kept the sprints on timeline.
        Then came another architect into picture, who from US, introduced a new technology (react js) in the UI part of project. It has been more than a month, the technology was introduced, yet no one is able to work on it properly. The deadline had to be pushed a month ahead. 2 sprints went without much deliverable. That US architect put himself as a commander of the team and made us to put him in all the code reviews. He blocked all our codes from going into testing. He published comments when it was non-working time in India and we worked on it the other day. One of my major piece of code X was not approved by him for around 2 weeks. I was even stuck with that for most of my time, mainly due to time syncing between the timezones. I have a habit of working late hours. Before that I never had interacted with him. But at the end of the a week, I worked late night and began pushing him for approval. That piece of code got approved but by the end of it, we changed design in the mean time. That changes are getting incorporated step by step.
        The US architect started questioning us in every single bit of code. More than 90% of them were worthless. Look and feel of the code and not the design or performance. All of the team in India were frustrated with him, but no one dared to tell him. Due to architectural limitations, the design we were working on till now was put into reconsideration. Check Limitations of NoSQL for details. He is now making us do the complete refactoring of the codes from scratch. The new design did not fit in the scenario. I and the other senior developer are strictly against the design. Then he himself suggested the design which is actually going on in the project. The refactoring code seems a waste of our time, but he someway will keep us to finish the refactoring to a better looking code.
        There is a guy in US, who is doing a small task since 2 weeks and still this architect is shielding him from getting questioned. But our architect here and the team lead are not doing the same, not even taking any stand. We have to step in to answer ourselves.
        Last Thursday, the architect in US scheduled a meeting with me, the other senior developer, the team lead, the architect in India and the manager from India and himself, the DBAs and the VP from US. Checking the schedule of the architect in India, the VP in India joined the meeting without notice. That day was the last day I kept my cool. The senior developer and the architect in India left early that day and I wasn't aware of the agenda of the meeting. The meeting was going something weird that day. I was not able to grasp what the US guys were asking. Finally by the end of the meeting I realized they are asking about the same piece of code I wrote which the architect in US did not approve for 2 weeks. That too not the design part of it, but the signature part. When I started explaining the VP in US asked me to document the complete signature of each part of the code what it does, what tables in DBs it touch. That seemed ok from VP point of view. But today we documented the signatures, there was a meeting to discuss the documentation. The signatures were checked and nothing concrete came out of the 2 hours meeting.
        Now I am too frustrated with that guy that I will straight refuse in front of my manager if he asks me to do anything again.