Riddle of the weekend (11July2008)

After a family get together, a group of revellers, who call themselves Awadhi Tigers, received the following mail:

Dear Awadhi Tigers,
Here are the damages for the nawabi gettogether on 12th including Champagne and Cake:
1. Sinha - 546/-
2. Trips - 1,365/-
3. AK Singh - 1,092/-
4. Amriks - 546/-
5. Ajay Gupta - 1,092/-
Cash/local cheque welcome!!!
dray

Fill in the blank below:
At least ....... people were present at the party

Answers on 14July2008

Here is the answer:

We worked this in the following way:
We found that 1092/- was a multiple of 546/-.
But 1365/- had a remainder of 273/- when divided by 546/-. Also, 546/- itself was a multiple of 273/-. So, we decided that 273/- must be the cost of each unit of attendance of the party.
To reinforce this we also looked at how 'Amriks' was written. In this context if one pluralises a name it normally alludes to a couple. Thus, 'Amriks' means Amrik and his wife. So two units made 546/-
If we have 273/- as a single unit, the rest is easy, it totals to 17 persons.

Adding the originator of the mail (dray), the total is 18 persons.