Today,I m obvsly not in the greatest of moods.This is when I tuk refuge at the hands of my favorite entertainer-Crosswords!I am one of the moderators of a yahoogroup called thehinduxword@yahoogroups.com .One of our renowned members is Mr.Chaturvasi,whose tryst with crosswords might span more than twice my age!He contributed some answers with excellent explanations for the newbies:
Here it is:
I am deconstructing all the across clues in The Hindu Crossword 7702. Newbies who are not able to go beyond some ten clues usually may check how the answers are derived in the case of those that defied them. Hope this helps. Please post a message if similar notes areneeded for all or any of “down” clues in 7702.


Across

1 Brooding over relative caught by the machine (8)

Thin(kin)g. Container-contained clue. “Thing” as a definition for “machine” is unusual but I think it is acceptable.

5 African country where head of boar is hidden amidst a tree (6)

Zam(b)ia. Another container-contained clue. Head of boar: b. Zamia is a kind of tree. See Chambers (or any other good dictionary). In the first case “caught by” is a container-contained signal; here it is “hidden”.

10 An individual's fairy is an individual (7)

Oneself (individual). One’s (individual’s) + elf (fairy). Bit by bit clue.

11 Pertaining to the theme is the hat on accountant-learner (7)

Topical (pertaining to the theme). Topi (hat) +C.A. (accountant)-L (learner). Bit by bit clue, with use of abbreviations.

12 Mr. Ring, forget the direction to store-room (6)

Larder (storeroom). N (direction) deleted from (Mr. Ring) Lardner, an American writer. “Forget” is the signal for deletion. Other signals noticed in recent instances are “miss”, “ignore” and such phrases. Deletion clue.

13 Revised chapter is about royal Italian poet (8)

Petrarch (Italian poet). Petrach (anagram of chapter) goes around R (abbr. for royal). Part anagram, part container-contained clue. “About” is the signal. “Revised” is the indication to anagram the letters in “chapter”.

15 Wind god in Hindu religion (4)

Vayu. Rather a straightforward clue.

16 Is no one in the running for this theatrical performance? (4-2,4)

Walk-on part. This is a minor, easy role in a play involving little action other than just walking from one part of the stage to another. Obviously few would be interested in grabbing such a role. Hence the query “Is no one in the running…” Pun or wordplay clue.

18 Not wrong: a fight can take a turn (5,5)

Right about (turn) . Right (not wrong) + a (which is derived gratis from the clue) + bout (fight). Bit by bit clue.

20 Mountains: Wall painting frayed on the top edge (4)

Ural (mountains). M deleted from mural (wall painting). “frayed on the top edge” suggests beheading of “mural”. Deletion clue. Deletion can occur in the beginning as in this case or at the end or in the middle in other cases.

23 Where lcky Tory is reformed (4,4)

York City. Anag. of icky tory; “is reformed” is the signal to anagram “icky tory”. Anagram clue. The definition “where” makes us suspect that what we want is a place name. While “is reformed” is the anag. signal here, sometimes it could be just “reformed” while “is” part of the anag. letters. When “icky tory” themselves form 8 (4+4) letters, the solver can ignore “is” as being part of the anag. letters, though it intervenes between the anag. letters and the anag. letters. However this does not mean that the anag letters may be separated as in instances of some lazy clues by some sloppy compilers.

24 Soldiers' leader in the military station is a tyrant (6)

Despot (tyrant). S (soldier’s leader) in depot (military station). Container-contained clue.

26 Attribute of a penman (7)

Ascribe (attribute) a (got free from the clue) + scribe (penman). Bit by bit clue.

27 The woman gives the Secret Service Oriental residue (7)

Vinasse (residue) See Chambers. Vina (name of a woman) +S.S. (Secret Service) + E (Oriental). Bit by bit clue, with abbreviations.

28 Fear of King involved in war (6)

Fright (fear). R (short for Rex, meaning king) in fight (war). Bit by bit, with abbr.

29 Rocks Rex in mixed doubles (8)

Boulders (rocks as a noun, not verb). R (see above) in bouldes, anag. of doubles, mixed being the anag. signal.

Posted by rajesh |

Bloody Murphy..!All my life,Murphyz been following me like a shadow reminding me of his notorious law.Nuthing has ever gone smooth for me.I have had to face hardships and go through the regular hiccups when I take on anything in life.The last 2 years,although it seems cool and comfortable,has actually been really a bumpy ride for me.When everythingz going right,if at all therz the faintest possibility of any sorta screw-up to occur,it definitely happens to me.
The latest being my Coop extension.I was verbally assured by my company's management that I ud be able to work till the end of Oct.Suddenly,they go back on their word and give me the marching orders from Aug!Adding salt to the injury,the company closes down for 2 weeks for cost cutting!I am left in the lurch with no work and no pay.
Well..is this what I deserve for being what I am..? Suddenly my head is heavy and I feel as if there is a huge lump in my throat and my eyes dont cease to be red anymore!
Oh..boy...!I definitely need a break from this frigging unstability..
Although it doesnt speak good of me,the fact that people who came after me,some of them even undeserving,landed up in a cool,luxurious life,makes me feel sick!I am not being jealous here but I am just cursing my fate ..
Hope is like soap!I bubble up with periodic streaks of enthusiasm only to figure out finally that it is simply diminishing in dimensions.
-raapi

Posted by rajesh |

Google helped me appreciate a wonderful style of art-Drawings by M.C Escher!I feel happy that I somehow stumbled upon the links which led me to an entirely amazing world of pictures which portrayed so many things other than the geometrical intricacies and the exquisite minute details.It actually conveyed the complex thinking and mental make up of the person who produced it.Every work of art had been meticulously produced and had a beautiful concept associated with it and for the first time ,I was able to appreciate some kind of an abstract art.
More details could be found at http://www.cs.unc.edu/~davemc/Pic/Escher/
I happened to watch yet another movie online.It was "jungle" directed by Ram Gopal Varma.No points for guessing who the heroine was!Urmila seemed to have sailed through the movie with not much of a classic performance.Her style of acting and overre-ACTING was the last thing I wanted to watch today.But on the whole,the movie seemed okay for the wonderful portrayal of a forest life and its inhabitants,which included a Veerappan style gang!Full marks to the cameraman who had cranked the movie interestingly.
well..thats it for today..
-raapi

Posted by rajesh |

This morning I accidentally switched on the idiot box after a long time.Yeah..I mean it..Its like 5 or 6 days since I watched anything.Even today,it was after a few minutes of non-sensical sounds emanating from its pedestrian programs that I noticed that I had switched on the TV.Then I decided to watch the Golf tournament,which seemed to be saner than the other nincompoop channels.
As I watched the players playing thier game with all the time of their life on thier hands,I wondered how rich the game and its participants must be.Golf is a game which gives meaning to what cornucopia is.Abundabt area of well maintained grassland,spanning the equivalent of around 10 to 15 football fields,very slowly paced game with an entirely different attitude amongst the players and the cool-headed spectators walking miles along the track not knowing where they or the game was headed;all these factors contributed to its uniqueness.
But as my mind was glorifying these thoughts about golf,my heart had a different story to say.It pined only for one game ..that was Cricket-The only game both my heart and mind accept with no arguments. I wondered why I prefered cricket to other games.
I figured out that Cricket is a game which was fast paced when compared to Golf,yet was not so short as a game of Basketball or soccer.It was different from most of the games by the fact that It did not involve much of a direct physical contact between it the opponents!Every player had a unique role to play at one point of the game or another,but is also expected to be on the watch out during the entire game.Compared to the other games,the amount of sweating/tire factor involved seemed to be less for the players,yet it raised the flow of adrenaline to both the players and the spectators!The instances of injury to the players are anyday less on a cricket field when compared to the Soccerfield or the American football game.More than all these,the entertainment offered to the audience is unmatchable.At the end of a days game of cricket,although there is an official winner of the game,nobody returns home a loser.Nothing else can satiate my hunger for entertainment when it comes to lying on my sofa the whole day watching a one day game of cricket.I am sure there are many others who would concur with me.
-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

Today was as usual a "Chatterday".I wonder how i would have survived for such long if there had been nuthing called an MSN or a yahoo messenger!Its analogous to that of a roadside tea shop bench where U never know who ud turn up and who udn't & when someone turns up therez definitely some kind of a useless conversation after the customary "Howdy?whatsup?Long time no c" expressions.
Every chat ends with an hackneyed expression- "Talk to you later/Take care/Bye for now".As if if they dont say that ,they would not talk to me later or I would forget to take care of myself!Its so ridiculous.Someone needs to bring out a separate language/protocol to chat online!Redundancy needs to be avoided!
Saturday and Sunday would be the 2 days when water conservation is at it peak in my house!I dont find much of a need to use them to clean myself until Monday morning when I decide to use them sympathising the plight of my coworkers,if I was to deicde against it even that day !
I spent a better part of the day listening to an Online tamil radio station airing some copied tamil songs and their original english versions.It was so fantastic and it really exposed the inefficiency of even the most prominent music directors in the Indian film Industry.Then My curiosity led into searching for some websites with similar info and I found a treasure
at http://www.mail-bag.com/copycat.shtml .It was amazing to figure out that even one of the latest hits from "Parthiban kanavu" had been entirely ripped off an english song!Most of us immediately get an instant thought of betrayal and having been cheated time and again.I beg to differ though.My point here is that Its not a great mistake to copy ,but when they copy ,they should atleast admit it and give reference/credits to the original composer.
I also watched "Yaadhein" from an internet website.It was a pretty decent movie with the usual Subash Ghai touch.I found a liking to the movie and also Kareena Kapoor,may be bcos this is the first movie that I am watching of hers.The fact that I am still humming its theme song reflects the melody of the music!
Other than that,nuthing else worthy of a mention today.I might set my foot out of the house to return an opened Coffee powder tin that I bought at HEB and bring out my frustration on the manager for the same.

-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

Ooops..very long time..I even forgot that there was this thing wer I cud scribble stuff,until I one of my frends' weblog reminded me.!
But the wierd thing is...
thers not been even an iota of a change in my life from what it was a month or an year ago!I could not call myself even a vegetable,because even a vegetable grows/undergoes transformations in its state.I could call myself a piece of furniture located at the same place,with not much of a change in any manner!
The mentionable trivial stuff that I went thro were
1)I drove down to houston to test drive Mercedes Benz's C series sports car.It was a wonderful experience! details abt the event at www.c-spotdriveparty.com
2)I drove down 9 hrs to Tulsa,wer my Periappa n periamma ,from India have come to stay with their son,Sridhar.I t was a welcome change for me n my friend,K-sreenivasan,who accompanied me.We had wonderful Kerala style food(paarikka pitlaa/keera molaguutal/nombu adai/puliyodharai/puuri/ven pongal etc etc) at the hands of periamma!wow..what a treat it was..I would not be exagerrating if I state that since I came back after that trip,I have cooked very less number of times.Jus the though abt those food items ,satiates my hunger n also drives away my intention to cook the worst kinda food that turns out from my hands!
If anybodyz even wondering y i am writing all this stuff...its jus to jot down my ramblings and may be come back after a few days/months/years and laugh/cry at what I ve gone through!
I am a moderator of a en egroup called shanm-usa which I started on the first week of my entry into the U.S!My intention was solely based on maintaing touch with all my frends from college.But as the months passed,Shanmusa took shape into a very informative,effecient tool for communication between U.S univ M.S aspirants and the M.S students already in U.S!It didnt take much long for the group to score a century in terms of its member count!
I would write a lot more abt this egroup in the postings to come!
adios for tonite!
-raapi

Posted by rajesh |