Doing crossword puzzles seems to be the preferred pastime of some people. I myself had been doing for some years what is called the ‘Easy crossword’, which means finding words corresponding to the actual meanings of the clues, which is not always that easy, I can assure you, because there can be more than one answer to each clue. Finding the right word, for say an ‘across’ clue, having letters that have to fit in with the words for the ‘down’ clues, certainly takes some doing. I kept indulging in this ‘intellectual’ pastime for quite some time, deriving no small degree of mental satisfaction therefrom .
Then one day I noticed my teenage daughter also doing some crossword puzzle. My curiosity was aroused and when I asked her what she was doing, she said ‘cryptic’ crossword. This answer itself being cryptic, I wanted to know what exactly it was and asked her to show me the clues. The first one she showed me was “Hide the real trouble”(7). All I could make out was that a seven letter word was the answer but I could not, for the life of me, understand what the ‘real’ trouble was and why it should be hidden.
Then my girl patiently explained to her rather foggy father that in this type of exercise, one should not go by the straightforward meaning of words but look for a hidden answer. In this particular case, she said the clue lay in the two words ‘the’ and ‘real’ adding up to seven letters in all.
The word ‘trouble’ throws a hint that the letters in ‘the’ and ‘real’ have to be re-arranged. I still did not see the light at the end of the tunnel but this bright kid came up with the word ‘leather’, which is another word for ‘hide’! Eureka !! How easy everything looks when it is explained!
But there are other types of clues too. Take the following example. “You may write this in pencil or in pen”(5). If you start speculating what could it be that can be written either in pencil or in pen, you will never arrive at the answer in a month of Sundays. You have to take recourse to what is known as lateral thinking. ‘Pen’ is not only a writing implement but also an enclosure for animals. And another word for ‘pen’ in this sense is ‘ sty’. The clue says ‘or in pen’. So ‘or’ has to be inserted within ‘pen’ i.e ‘ sty’. Doing this, we get the word ‘ story’. And who can deny that you may write a story in pencil?!
This is how the bug bit me. I must confess that it had also to do with my fatherly ego. I must have thought , however silly it may seem, that if my child could do it, so could I. And it did not take long for me to become a confirmed addict. I even used to tease my daughter later saying “If you have any trouble with crossword clues ever, come to Dad.” She would give me a quizzical look, which seemed to say “ Says you”!
I read somewhere that keeping the mind active by doing such puzzles is a good way of warding off complaints like Alzheimer’s in old age. What an encouraging thought!