Friday, July 02, 2004

Crossword

Day before yesterday I thought of watching the movie 'Day after tomorrow' but ended up finishing The Hindu Crossword. It is a great feeling when you fill up the whole grid, and for a person, like me, who doesn't do it often, it is just wonderful. I developed interest in crosswords because of my dad. He used to solve the Hindu crossword daily and is quite an expert.

The main element in a crossword, or rather in making a grid, is symmetry. Any standard crossword(cryptic) grid has two symmetrical parts. One part is basically the mirror image of the other. This symmetry exists either diagonally or vertically or horizontally. It is a very interesting concept, highlighted to me by one of Sharad's friends. And from then on I realised how easy it is to make a grid.

Solving a crossword requires a decent vocabulary, an eye for detail and sense to pick up subtle insinuations. It is some sort of an addiction because as you start cracking a few clues you tend to think that if you've got so many, you can certainly get a lot more. And in the long run, wherever you see a crossword, even in kids' magazines, you put your head down and solve it. It is a great challenge and a nice exercise for the brain.

Otherwise things are fine. My alma mater in Hyderabad celebrated its tenth anniversary on the 1st of this month and I got to meet a lot of old friends. It was a pleasant trip down memory lane.

Life goes on...

2 Comments:

Blogger SV said...

Hmmm,

School alumni meet eh ? ******* . Good to know you are solving crosswords , I suck at it.

Cheers,

sharad

11:37 AM  
Blogger Aarya Srinivas said...

hello abhimanyu

i see your interest in the hinxu crossword, i would request you to join this group that we have exclusively for the hindu crossword, you can find the group by following this link

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thehinduxword/

pradeep

9:07 AM  

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