V. Raghunathan

“white calla lily has one petal; euphorbia has two; iris, lily and trillium have three; buttercup, columbine, larkspur pinks and wild rose have five; bloodroot and delphiniums, eight; black-eyed Susan, corn marigold, cineraria, ragwort and some varieties of daisies have thirteen; some aster, chicory and Shasta daisy, twenty-one; field daisies, plantain, and pyrethrum, thirty-four (on average); Michaelmas daisies and the stereaceae family have fifty-five and eighty-nine petals. Perhaps you could spend your next summer vacation checking out the veracity of this statement!”
― V. Raghunathan, Locks, Mahabharata Mathematics: An Exploration of Unexpected Parallels

“Let us assume that on the first wedding anniversary, before the SOP was put in place, a long-time close friend of Draupadi asks her out of naughty friendly curiosity, which of her five husbands she favoured the most and which the least. Draupadi feigns anger at the question, but in a playful mood, tells her friend that she has a meticulous log of the number of nights she spent with each of her husbands through the year, though she has no intention of sharing the information with her! But as a tease, she is willing to share with her friend, the total number of nights spent by her with four of her husbands in five different combinations. In effect, she presents her friend with the following five equations: y + b + a + n = 304 b + a + n + s = 296 a + n + s + y = 294 n + s + y + b = 280 s + y + b + a = 310 Where y stands for the total number of nights spent with Yudhisthira, b for the number of nights spent with Bhima, a for the number of nights with Arjuna, n for the number of nights with Nakula, and s for the nights spent with Sahadeva.”
― V. Raghunathan, Locks, Mahabharata Mathematics: An Exploration of Unexpected Parallels