The other side of Nita Jaggi

You can't find papier mache sculptures so easily in the market. Some of them are rare and especially the ones that has a shiny tint to it.

Over a period of seven years artist Nita Jaggi has mastered the art of making these eco-friendly sculptures and has exhibited three of these at Gallery Pradarshak along with eight mix media paintings. One can see her work till March 8.

Explaining her works Nita said, "My work includes many mechanical strokes and this is to imply the lives of urban women that is mechanical."

She adds, "I have put in a lot of effort to create these sculptures, they are eco-friendly too."

It is interesting to know that Nita's love for this art is actually a result of creating crosswords and solving them. She is actually a master at creating crosswords which she does for some leading dailies.

Recalling her childhood days, Nita says, "As a kid I used to solve all the puzzles and crosswords that used to appear in the newspaper. Crosswords have always been a fun activity for me," she says, adding, "I got married at the age of 20 and my first kid was born after two years. That was the time when I wanted to do something creative and also something that isn't pressurising and strenuous. I took up a job with Navneet publication as a crossword designer and then moved on to Amrita Bharti. I now prefer working as a free lancer."

FROM ABHINAV GUPTA'S BLOG

OF CRUCIO & VERBALISTS

Quite some time back, I had gone for a particular quiz where the audience was asked to explain the meaning of the word 'cruciverbalist'. Being a bit too immersed in the Harry Potter lore, I shouted out "one who hurts others by using harsh words" (I am sure most people can understand this - whether you have read any Harry Potter or not). Only when the quizmaster actually laughed at my answer did I realize that I had done something quite stupid. And almost instantly I realized that the word actually refers to a person who solves crosswords.

And well, that seems to be the flavor of the season - Crosswords. To be precise, as Thomson & Thompson say, Cryptic Crosswords. I first came to know of this kind of crossword in college, when a few school friends of mine (and at that time in a different college) introduced me to the world of cryptic clues & crosswords. But it was only at Adobe, that I managed to get a hang of it. A colleague of mine & I would sit down and attempt the crossword, regularly. But we were never really able to proceed further than 10-15 answers. And we thought, that even that was pretty decent, Hindu crossword's difficulty level being what it is. That was until now. We just picked up this old habit again. After a long time. It has been 3 consecutive attempts in this second stint of ours & Lo Behold..! We have come close to cracking the entire crossword ( bar 3-4 clues each time) twice. Yes, we believe that the crosswords are sub-par, and we vent out all our frustration for that on Nita Jaggi ( the current Hindu crossword compiler ), but still, solving almost the entire crossword is another feeling altogether. Conceded that we had the help of an ace quizzer cum cruciverbalist today, but we were matching him as well..!

How I wish I had a scanner and could upload these 3 attempts of ours, all the insane & inane) rough work, guesses, cuts & crosses. But alas..! Still, for now, crosswords rule..!! Cryptic Crosswords, to be precise.. :)

PS: The blog post is badly structured for a reason. Look out for the cryptic clues embedded within the post... :)

Beginner's guide to solving cryptic crosswords

To celebrate publication of 25,000 Guardian cryptic crosswords, here are some handy tips to help you solve them

By Sandy Balfour

At first glance, cryptic crossword clues can appear daunting, but what no one ever tells you is this: the answer is right in front of you – by definition. Every crossword clue contains a definition of the answer you're looking for. All you have to do is find it . . .

1. Read the clue. Then read it backwards. Either the first word or the last word (or phrase, or even the whole clue) defines the solution. Work out what the solution means. For example: Former lover can court no more(7). Possible definitions? Former or former lover or more or no more.

2. Think about the rest of the clue. The part of the clue that is not the definition is known as the subsidiary indicator. The SI is there to help. It gives you another way to get the solution. This, in theory, makes it easier. In the clue above: former lover often means EX. Can sometimes means IS ABLE but can also be a TIN. Court may mean WOO but can also be shortened to CT, as in a street name.

3. Harden your heart against the setter's siren charms. The subsidiary indicator offers a route to the solution – but it also offers the setter the opportunity to lead you down the garden path. The clue here, on a surface reading, seems to be about lovers and courting and so on. It almost certainly isn't. It's probably about death or something.

4. Repeat step three. They really are cunning foxes, these setters. They have essentially two ways of messing with you. The first is by disguising the definition. It's still a definition, but it's cryptic. The second is by having fun with the surface reading of the subsidiary indicator. Try, for example, Puck's clue from a couple of weeks back: Maybe wearing some larger undies (6). The surface is clearly about people like you and me, those whose better days are behind us and who now shop at M&S. But what's the definition? Undies? Maybe? Maybe wearing?

5. Look at the number of letters. Ten-letter solutions are longer than five-letter solutions. I know it sounds obvious, but it should shape your thinking. A 10-word clue for a three-letter solution should alert you to something. So should a question mark at the end of a clue. A question mark means the setter is not quite playing by the rules.

6. Solve the damn thing . . . Yes, well, that's all very well (I hear you cry) – so let's return to the two clues . . .

Former lover can court no more (6):

Definition? No more. Made up of? Former lover = EX + can = TIN + court = CT = EXTINCT. Meaning, no more.

Maybe wearing some larger undies (7):

Definition: a type of word of which "wearing" (indicated by maybe) is an example. Oh, right, a GERUND. It's right there in front of us: some (meaning "part of") larGER UNDies.

Alternatively, you can turn do the Sudoku instead. But where's the fun in that?

Don Manley (born 2 June 1945) is a long-serving compiler of crosswords in the UK.

He has supplied puzzles for the Glasgow Herald, Radio Times, The Spectator,

The Independent, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the Financial Times among others. He is crossword editor of Church Times.

He writes under the pseudonyms Duck, Pasquale, Quixote, Bradman, and Giovanni (all punningly connected with the name Don or Donald). He has also written a book on devising and solving crosswords, Chambers Crossword Manual (1986, 4th edition October 2006).

He has appeared on the BBC Radio 4 panel game, Puzzle Panel, and anchored the BBC4 documentary "How to Solve a Cryptic Crossword".

Don Manley was brought up in Cullompton, Devon, attending local state schools and Blundell's School, Tiverton as a Foundation Scholar. He read physics at Bristol University. After a short spell in a telecommunications laboratory he worked in academic and educational publishing at The Institute of Physics, Stanley Thornes, Basil Blackwell, and Oxford University Press, which he left in 2002, when crosswords took over as his sole paid occupation. He is married to Dr Susan Manley, a clinical biochemist. They have two married children and one grandson.

and literally so...

"& lit."

A rare clue type is the "& lit." clue, standing for "and literally so". In this case, the entire clue is both a definition and a cryptic clue. In some publications this is always indicated by an exclamation mark at the end of the clue. For example:

God incarnate, essentially! (4)

The answer is ODIN. The Norse god Odin is hidden in "god incarnate", as clued by "essentially", but the definition of Odin is also the whole clue, as Odin is essentially a God incarnate.

This satisfies the "& lit." clue definition but as read is clearly a cryptic clue. Another example:

Spoil vote! (4)

would give the answer VETO; in the cryptic sense, spoil works as an anagram indicator for vote, while the whole clue is, with a certain amount of licence allowed to crossword setters, a definition.

Another example:

e.g., Origin of goose (3)

gives the answer EGG. Geese find their origins in eggs, so the whole clue gives "egg", but the clue can also be broken down: e.g., loses its full stops to give eg, followed by the first letter (i.e., the "origin") of the word goose--g--to make egg.

TRIVIA

The daily crosswords made their appearance in The Hindu in the early 1970s. (For some time, when there was a shortage of newsprint, the crosswords appeared thrice a week.) The paper had the distinction of being the first to have crosswords compiled by an Indian six days a week. Some other newspapers also had Indian-origin puzzles, but only once a week. The first setter was Admiral R.D. Katari, who took up this task after he retired as the first Indian Chief of the Indian Navy. His creations were admired for excellent craftsmanship; but the composer remained anonymous. It was only in the obituary notice for the Admiral that this role found mention.

TRIVIA

Anax made his debut, as LOROSO, as a setter in the Financial Times (FT).

The puzzle number is 13,364.

An interesting clue in this puzzle: On / off? (7)

Solution: Running (DD)