Crosswords. Ah, that quintessentially British grid of black and white squares that weaves wicked logic and wickeder lateral references into devious clues that
derange the unprepared mind. Well, that sentence came out nicely but it had a false start. Crosswords, it turns out are of hybrid British-American origin, having first appeared in New York World in 1913 but set by a Liverpudlian named Arthur Wynne. But as they became a global phenomenon by the 1920s, several variants took firm hold in our collective imagination. The particular format that India is familiar with is the British grid,
especially of the cryptic variety. Unlike the original American style crossword, the cryptic crossword is, to put it in true cryptic terms, involves a kind of thinking that is “Dead sun god joins league leader and goes off to the sides (7)”. For the uninitiated, dead (late) sun god (ra) joins league leader (the letter ‘L’) and becomes LATERAL, off to the sides.
Immensely more fun and time consuming (at least for beginners) than the American style, the cryptic crossword is an acquired taste, like beer, caviar or karuvaadu kuzhambu . It generally leaves a rather bad taste in the mouth the first time one tries it. Take this complete bouncer for instance - gegs (9,4). When you are told the answer “Scrambled Eggs”, you should have goose pimples by now. That is why cryptic crosswords are so pleasurable. They are indeed, “Angry verbiage of the cryptic kind (9)”, where Angry (CROSS) and verbiage (WORD) form the lateral reference part of the clue while the second half is the more direct reference.
The late Indira Gandhi is said to have been a cryptic crossword solver par extraordinaire but as history goes, the story of Leonard Dawe, an English schoolteacher at the time of the second world war is rather more fascinating. In 1944, the Allies were perturbed to find a series of crossword clues in the Daily Telegraph, all of which had answers that were the secret code names for military operations planned as part of Operation Overlord, that included the famous Normandy landings. “Utah”, “Omaha” and “Mulberry” were among those answers. But
despite initial fears that there was a leak, it eventually transpired that Dawe, the man who set these puzzles was simply making clues for words he had overheard at army camps close to where he lived. Another interesting bit of trivia — some cryptologists for Bletchley Park, the legendary place where the Nazi code was cracked by Alan Turing’s team, were selected after doing well in a crossword solving competition.
But personally, I think cryptic crosswords in India need to evolve beyond obscure British references. I’d like to see obscure Indian references, in fact obscure Chennai references would be nice. How about “Apostle group show off (5,5)” or “Stoical entrant stumbles into a lot of platforms (7,7)” or “Strange matter of GMail failure (5)”.
The answers, in case you didn’t crack them are PETER PARTY, CENTRAL STATION and GILMA.