Cryptic My A*^%$!
I'm not finding this cryptic crossword stuff funny. The brain is designed to think in a particular direction. This is not the tendency when doing these types of puzzles. As I stare at the clues with my dyslexic mind's-eye, i find myself tensing and untensing, flailing in a blustery stirring of crazed pretend-words. What is a maenad, damn it?! How am I suppose to know other languages? This word is not allowed in scrabble!
(The Clue was: Mother knocked over Scandinavian--she's a crazy woman!)
So it is with my limits. I set them on my own. I have bound myself to a finite world and refused to stretch my imagination farther than I can bear. How have I become so confined? I was never like this before.
A man once asked his teacher the answer to a simple question:
When will I know if I have reached enlightenment?
His teacher smiled and replied, "When you believe that you have reached enlightenment, then you are farther away than when you began your journey there."
How will I ever know if I can solve these crosswords?
posted by tree @ 6:24 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Ohh! Jhvh ... there you are...
You are right. You should be ready to give yourself a looot of freedom to think cryptic.
Solutions to cryptic clues exist in that part of our conscious mind which doesnt dare to experiment/think out-of-the-box. You keep thinking whether THAT word is the answer (yes you would have guessed the answer already) but it takes quite some training to let go of yourself and get the word out, leaving people gaping at you as you jot down the correct answer. That moment is sacreligious to say the least.
Simple answer to your questions...
ASK CHANDU...
Chandu would smirk and tell you maybe that I was the one who taught him to solve crosswords and will also give you a very alien-like smile when you mention cryptic. Because thats one thing we cracked open in the 4 years of undergraduation.
When that 40 odd seconds have passed after you read the clue, I would say Hmmmmmmm??? ... chandu would say ... mmm. Then we do not talk anymore. We are laughing as we write down the answer.
Ravi on his day is brilliant at cryptics. Kamal liked them more than he did not like them.
I think i will have an exclusive post for cryptic crosswords if you wont kill me !!!
Vidyanath
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