Cryptic Crosswords

The thing about living your life like a checklist is that the moment its over you become listless again. Nothing like a good pun to lift your spirits.

An item which has been long due on my cheklist was 'to solve The Hindu cryptic crossword'. Crossword lovers know that it is the holy grail of all crosswords available in India. The proverbial bees knees amongst the fare available in all dailies which are either borrowed from British or American newspapers or trashy, dumbed down versions like those avilable in TOI, HT, Mid Day etc. To be fair, Hindu does carry a daily quick crossword borrowed from The Guardian which is mostly fun to solve. However, one cannot really solve (fully) a foreign crossword because they are willy nilly steeped in that country's english speaking culture/history to which we are wholly removed or oblivious to.

But the Hindu cryptic crossword always presented itself like a huge challenge to me everytime I attempted it. Try as hard as I might, I could'nt make head or tail of it for so long and I have been ashamed to admit it. I started ignoring it assuming it to be some sort of an arcane, esoteric fare which a few nerds enjoyed. On one last ditch attempt I discovered the solution to one of the clues at one blog I read. The clue was 'sensuality displayed by ducks on speed(5)'. The answer is 'oomph' (go figure!) and the explanation blew my mind. And in that moment I knew that this was something I had to do. Thus this item entered my checklist immediately and perched itself on top.

Crosswords have a rich and chequered history and like most things you can read all about it on the wikipedia page. A cryptic crossword is one wherein every clue is a puzzle in itself which needs to be worked out to fill in the spaces.

Luckily I had a long break from office during Diwali which I utilised fully in reading extensively about it. And I can tell you with some degree of pride that I solved 4 of these cryptic ones of the Hindu between November 1 to 6. [Ok, fine so I couldnt solve it fully but 18 out 28 clues is no mean achievement.] So, I punched the air and patted myself on the back. I told my parents and they looked at me as if I was some kinda loony alien boy.

Sadly, good things in life dont last long. Soon I was gently reminded that this very newspaper publishes a particularly harsh cryptic on its Sunday issue every week. This one follows a different series than the weekdays one and is considerably more difficult. Cant wait to sink my teeth into one of those. Bring it on.....

Heres a quick explanation to the clue above: The actual clue is sensuality and the remaining is the hint. A duck in cricket is a 'O' and so ducks give you "OO". The word speed is often denoted by miles per hour or 'mph'. Add them together and you get 'oomph'.