Tuesday 10 March 2020

Prize Puzzle: Hindi Crossword 7 – Solution and Winner

We have received your answers and your feedback to Prize Puzzle: Hindi Crossword 7. It is time to give out the solution, reflect on your responses, and announce the name of a lucky winner.

Hindi Crossword 7 - Grid with Solution

आर-पार

क्रमांक संकेत उत्तर टिप्पणी
1 थोड़ी मुश्किल है, थोड़ा झेलिये,
और शब्द बताइये एक मेरे लिए (2)
मुझे मु (of मुश्किल) + झे (of झेलिये); Definition: मेरे लिए
2 आप और मैं अंग्रेज़ी भुगतते हैं,
ये रेल या बस में साथ चलते हैं (5)
हमसफ़र हम (आप और मैं) + सफ़र (भुगतते in English); Definition: ये रेल या बस में साथ चलते हैं
5 देसी खाने को जब सीने से ना लगाया
तब आँखों ने क्या किया? (2)
देखा 'देसी खाने' without 'सी ने'; Definition: आँखों ने क्या किया
7 गंभीर रॉय, शुरू से
घोष के सर के पीछे पड़े (2)
घोर र (start of रॉय) after (घो head of घोष); Definition: गंभीर
8 ये हुआ तो शेष,
कुछ हकलाया तो शिशु? (2)
बचा The answer, when stuttered, becomes बच्चा (शिशु); Definition: शेष
10 लड़की यूँ हिली
कि टहनी मिली (3)
लकड़ी Anagram (यूँ हिली) of लड़की; Definition: टहनी
12 गाय के सर पर तिनके का टुकड़ा पड़ा है,
बूझो तो जाने कि उसकी रफ़्तार क्या है? (2)
गति To ग (the head of गाय) is attached ति (a piece of तिनके); Definition: रफ़्तार
13 सूजी नहीं! ये होना,
मतलब चले जाना (3)
रवाना रवा (सूजी) + ना (नहीं); रवाना होना means चले जाना
15 करुणा के लिए हाथ,
कुछ ममता के साथ (3)
करम कर (हाथ) with म (कुछ ममता); Definition: करुणा
17 आपने तकल्लुफ़ बिन,
शुरुआत में रखी संस्कृत लेकिन
जब अंत का अवसर आया
मुझे हरियाणवी से रंगा पाया (3)
तुमने तु (संस्कृत 'लेकिन') + मने ('मुझे' हरियाणवी से रंगा); Definition: 'आपने' तकल्लुफ़ बिन i.e. informally
20 बनके राजा इंदौर का,
खोया हिस्सा लाहौर का (3)
होकर होलकर (राजा इंदौर का) lost ल (हिस्सा 'लाहौर' का); Definition: बनके
22 मशहूर शायर अमरोही
की कलाम बड़ी अनोखी (3)
कमाल Anagram (बड़ी अनोखी) of कलाम; Definition: मशहूर शायर अमरोही
23 नहीं नहीं, लगाना पड़ेगा मानद प्रत्यय
जभी परिवार के वरिष्ठ सदस्य मिल गये (3)
नानाजी ना + ना + जी (मानद प्रत्यय); Definition: परिवार के वरिष्ठ सदस्य
25 एक आँख वाली निगले थोड़ी मिश्री
ताकि वह बन सके एक सुंदर स्त्री (3)
कामिनी कानी (एक आँख वाली) swallows मि (a bit of मिश्री); Definition: सुंदर स्त्री
27 बेवक़ूफ़ दफ्तरकर्मिंयों के मुखड़ों को आग लग जाएगी
तब कहीं जाके वो साफ़ बन जाएगी (3)
बेदाग बे द (the fronts of बेवक़ूफ़ and दफ्तरकर्मिंयों) + आग; Definition: साफ़
28 सोने का पर्याय,
जो सीधा-उल्टा समान नज़र आये (3)
कनक कनक is a palindrome, and a synonym (पर्याय) of सोना
30 बहस में उलझे कुछ अक्षर
उनको रिहा कर या बर्दाश्त कर (2)
सह Anagram of हस from बहस; Definition: बर्दाश्त कर
31 एक प्राणी का नाम तुम कहना
जो कूदके बन सकता है वरना... (3)
वानर Anagram of वरना; Definition: एक प्राणी
33 सीता शायद ऐसी थी,
धीरे धीरे बोलती थी,
पंक्ति का पहला अक्षर लेती थी,
और भोली भाली बनती थी (2)
सीधी First parts of the first two lines: सी and धी; Definition: भोली भाली
35 मामी का एक हिस्सा और दादी का एक हिस्सा,
दोनों असल मे क्या है, यही है किस्सा (2)
मादा मा (मामी का एक हिस्सा) + दा (दादी का एक हिस्सा). Both मामी and दादी are female.
36 इसको पहनोगे आप यदि,
तो दिखेगी एक छोटी नदी (2)
चश्मा d&cd; you wear a चश्मा to see, and चश्मा is also a rivulet
37 पहले-पहल मेजर हरिवंश राय बाहर निकलता,
और बहुत दयालु दिखता (4)
मेहरबान Acrostic - initial letters from 'मेजर हरिवंश राय बाहर निकलता'; Definition: दयालु
38 कुछ मेघ नाकाम होते है,
लेकिन वह ठोस होते है (2)
घना Hidden in 'मेघ नाकाम'; Definition: ठोस

नीचे की ओर

क्रमांक संकेत उत्तर टिप्पणी
1 मुझे कुछ लफ्ज़ पहले जोड़ के दिखाओ,
कली के लिए एक और शब्द बताओ ( 3)
मुकुल Acrostic - initial letters from 'मुझे कुछ लफ्ज़'; Definition: कली
2 प्रत्येक सरहद-वासी ऐंठा हुआ है
वह राज़ छुपाए बैठा हुआ है (2)
हर Wordplay 1: Hidden (छुपाए बैठा हुआ है) in 'वह राज़' 2. Wordplay 2: Hidden (वासी) jumbled (ऐंठा हुआ है) in 'सरहद'; Definition: प्रत्येक
3 संगीत के सुर सात ही,
मगर सातों में बद्ध अवरोही (4)
सरगम Hidden (बद्ध) reversed (अवरोही) in 'मगर सातों'; Definition: संगीत के सुर सात
4 अरबी की छाल फेंक दो,
छिपा हुआ ख़ुदा देख लो (2)
रब Remove (छाल फेंक दो) of 'अरबी' to find a hidden रब (ख़ुदा)
6 ले कोठरी के भीतर रखना,
फिर इसे निगल जाना (1,2)
खा लेना ले inside खाना (कोठरी); Definition: निगल जाना
7 जो उसकी जान तक ले जाए वर,
बारातियों के बीच मिले वो जानवर (2)
घोड़ी CD - reference to the Indian wedding tradition of the groom arriving on a mare.
9 समाचार में दिखे समान,
ये है इस संख्या की पहचान (2)
चार समाचार with no समा (i.e. समा न); Definition: संख्या
11 जिसको खाने से बात का वजन बढ़ जाता है,
उसका पेट काटने से कम हो जाता है! (3)
कसम क[स]म = कम; Definition: जिसको खाने से बात का वजन बढ़ जाता है, a reference to कसम खाना
14 बहुत अच्छे! जब मिली पहली कमाई
सामान ले जाने का साधन ले आई (3)
वाहक वाह (बहुत अच्छे)+ क (the first of 'कमाई'); Definition: सामान ले जाने का साधन
16 नसीरुद्दीन शाह की पत्नी को हाथ लगे
बहुमूल्य हीरे जवाहरात के खान मिले (4)
रत्नाकर रत्ना (नसीरुद्दीन शाह की पत्नी)+ कर (हाथ); Definition: बहुमूल्य हीरे जवाहरात के खान
17 तुरंत लाओ नाश्ते के पहले वाले निवाले
तो तुमको एक अलग तरह का उपमा मिले (3)
तुलना First bits of 'तुरंत लाओ नाश्तों Definition: upma = simile, comparison
18 "आज़ाद हिन्द फौज" के नायक
बने अभिनेता जीतेन्द्र दिल से, कुछ हद तक (3)
नेताजी Hidden within (दिल से, कुछ हद तक) 'अभिनेता जीतेन्द्र'; Definition: "आज़ाद हिन्द फौज" के नायक
19 "चलते चलते" तुम याद रखना,
कभी यह लफ्ज़ ना कहना (4)
अलविदा CD - reference to the lyrics of the song 'चलते चलते...कभी अलविदा ना कहना'
20 त्यौहार में होगा जिसका दहन,
वो है प्रह्लाद के पिता की बहन (3)
होलिका CD - reference to the legend of Holika
21 गड़बड़ नीरज का किया,
नाम निशा का दिया (3)
रजनी Anagram (गड़बड़) of नीरज; Definition: निशा
24 "गणना न कर" मानो याचना है म्हारी
कल्पत किस्सों में अक्सर होती हूँ इच्छाधारी (3)
नागिन गणना न कर = ना गिन; Definition: कल्पत किस्सों में अक्सर होती हूँ इच्छाधारी, alluding to shape-shifting snakes in folklore
26 कुछ हद तक शामिल नहीं
फिर भी यह संगम सही (3)
मिलन Hidden in 'शामिल नहीं'; Definition: संगम
27 एक-एक चुटकी बेसन, हल्दी, तिल और राई के डालो,
सब जुड़ जाएं तो अच्छा बना लो (4)
बेहतर Acrostic - pick and join the tops from 'बेसन हल्दी तिल राई'; Definition: अच्छा
28 नैतिक वचनों में निमग्न हैं इस रक्षक के वर्ण
जिसके प्रख्यात भेंटकर्ता हैं दानवीर कर्ण (3)
कवच The letters (वर्ण) of this protector (इस रक्षक) are hidden (निमग्न) in 'नैतिक वचनों'; Definition: जिसके प्रख्यात भेंटकर्ता हैं दानवीर कर्ण, alluding to the story from Mahabharata
29 एक रस्सी के अंतिम हिस्से लो
दोनो बांध के खिंची हुई कर दो (2)
कसी Pick and tie together the last letters from 'एक रस्सी'; Definition: खिंची हुई
31 11 जैसा ही एक और बार,
ये आधे से कम स्वादानुसार (2)
वादा under 50% of 'स्वादानुसार'; Definition: synonym of 11d (कसम)
32 चना जोर की चाट जो ना खाए,
उसे सृष्टि कहकर बुलाया जाए (3)
रचना Anagram (चाट) of (चना जोर) without जो; Definition: सृष्टि
34 गधी! मेले में कुछ ढूंढ ले
जवाब पाओगी हौले हौले (2)
धीमे Find the answer inside 'गधी मेल'; Definition: हौले हौले
35 नाम को कर डाला रद्दी,
फिर भी मिली प्रसिद्धि (2)
मान Anagram (कर डाला रद्दी) of नाम; Definition: प्रसिद्धि

The Theme

The grid packs within it a Nina: तुमने मुझे देखा होकर मेहरबान, the opening line of Rafi’s song from the film Teesri Manzil (1966).

Hindi Crossword 7 - Grid with Theme

Our alert solvers who identified the theme correctly:

Himanshu Rajurkar
Narayan Mandyam
Vasant Srinivasan
Supriya Mithal

Looking back at the puzzle…

This puzzle was voted as tougher than our previous ones [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] by many of you – and we can see why. Clueing as couplets is not just hard for the setter, it also adds a layer of complexity for the solver.

We trust you enjoyed the challenge nevertheless. One kind solver wrote:

More than the novelty of a Hindi cryptic, I liked the usage of couplets in setting the clues. This was extremely creative and led to some funny clues as well (if you just were to read these as mere couplets instead of clues). In particular, I found these quite funny: 7D, 35D, 27A and these very clever: 2A, 17A, 8A.

…which made me recall how setting / reviewing these clues had me chuckling!

Conjunct consonants: A chicken-and-egg problem

This crossword highlighted a peculiar predicament we face with Hindi grids, in the use of conjunct consonants. We make an effort to place words with conjunct consonants in the grid as they bring in variety and freshness, but these characters tend to go into unchecked slots - it is nearly impossible to find crossings for them. You would notice this happening with चश्मा (36a), रत्नाकर (16d).

So, even though 36a and 16d are 50% checked, the checked vs unchecked cells for them are unequally balanced because of the nature of characters filling them.

Many solvers stumbled over the answers for 36a and 16d in this puzzle.

There is no clear way out of this situation, except that as setters, we can be mindful of keeping the clues for such words accessible.

Aisa karam na kijiye…

The unchecked first cell for 15a and its not-too-obvious definition (करुणा) seems to have caused confusion. This clue received the maximum variations in the submitted solutions: मरम, नरम. कृपाम…

Upma uproar

In your responses, 17d (तुलना) was easily the most talked about clue of this crossword. The setter's trick here was to position "upma" as the breakfast dish on the surface, when actually referring to "comparison" in its cryptic reading.

तुरंत लाओ नाश्ते के पहले वाले निवाले
तो तुमको एक अलग तरह का उपमा मिले (3)

Many solvers cited this as their LOI, and they reacted to the penny-drop with a range of responses: "very deep", "very smart" to “gender error” – upma is masculine when we talk of breakfast (सूजी का उपमा) , but feminine in the sense of comparison (जिसकी उपमा ना दी जा सके). Should the gender on the surface match that of the answer? The jury is out on this one, but I understand if this is considered unfairly misleading, much like the "to" connector issue in English cryptics.

Such a mismatch can be circumvented by framing the clue differently (or shall we say, एक अलग तरह का) to avoid a gender reference altogether. Note to self for the future.

No two-threes, please!

A regular solver sent in this request:

…please spare us the two and three letter words and if possible, create a software to solve online, as One Across group. It is such a nuisance, to get a printout and the flipping and flitting between the clues and the grid…

You might as well have asked us for a million dollars and world peace. Much as Kishore and I would like to address these wishes, doing so is beyond our capabilities. To set a Hindi crossword grid with the fundamentals of symmetry, checking, connectivity in place, without any word suggestion software to help, is a task so tough that it takes enormous will and effort to bring it to fruition. Please read this article to see what we are up against: Why Hindi and cryptic crosswords do not mix. The only way we manage is with two and three letter words surrounding the longer ones. I can hardly imagine how we would set without these little helpers!

Software to solve Hindi crosswords interactively: if such software already exists, or someone can help to build one, we would love to try it out. Please let us know.

Those who solved it all…

Kudos to the solvers who got all, or nearly all, answers correct:

Sanjay Sinha Lakshmi Vaidyanathan
Vidyadhar Gadgil Himanshu Rajurkar
Vinayak Rao Ekbote Narayan Mandyam
Ramki Krishnan Vasant Srinivasan
Raju Umamaheshwar N Anantakrishnan
Shalini Vasant Balwant Singh
Supriya Mithal  

A special applause for first time/non-regular cryptic solvers. Even if you did not make the shortlist, it is impressive that you solved as much as you did. I hope you enjoyed tackling the puzzle even if each clue did not fall.

The draw of luck

Of the 13 above, 11 got every detail right - one lucky winner of them will get the prize. Let's see who...

For the draw, we used a Java program with the Random class and executed it online. The program and the draw in action are available in the embedded video. [RSS/email subscribers: You may have to go to the blog for the video.]

Hearty congratulations, Sanjay Sinha! Please write to me and claim your prize.

Related Posts:

If you wish to keep track of further articles on Crossword Unclued, you can subscribe to it in a reader via RSS Feed. You can also subscribe by email and have articles delivered to your inbox, or follow me on twitter to get notified of new links.

22 comments

Kishore said...

Congratulations, Sanjay Sinha!

Thanks to Shuchi for running this puzzle. Interaction with her on this puzzle, especially the Upma gender issue, has made me realise it was sheer lunacy on my part to have tried to set a Hindi puzzle, given my flawed understanding of grammar. Many thanks to her for bearing with me and making corrections where necessary.

Thanks to all participants. It was nice reading your comments.

Shuchi said...

@Kishore: Modest as usual! Grammar is only a tool - your creativity, vocabulary, skill with the grid are invaluable!

Thanks to you too for keeping my clues grounded, pointing out when they get over-convoluted, and pitching in when I run out of ideas.

Kishore said...

@Shuchi: Modesty and me! Impossible! Would you have said grammar is only a tool if I had messed up in an English puzzle?

Regarding pitching in when you run out of ideas, it was a part of the deal; you too have done it. For friends not familiar with the connection between crosswords and pitch(fork)ing, I draw their attention to a short story The Truth about George by PG Wodehouse, which is woven around crosswords.

More at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_George

Lakshmi Vaidyanathan said...

Congratulations Sanjay Sinha !

Vasant said...

Congratulations Sanjay Sinha!
Very beautiful puzzle. Thanks to Kishore and Shuchi.

Himanshu said...

Congratulations Sanjay! Thanks Kishore and Shuchi for this crossword.

Kishore said...

For those interested to follow up on my 17:17 comment:

Please watch at

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6w9huw

Crossword fans will love it

Narayan said...

Well done Sanjay sinha

Kishore said...

An interesting anecdote that occurred during setting:

In 4d,
अरबी की छाल फेंक दो,
छिपा हुआ ख़ुदा देख लो (2)

The person who wrote the clue originally used chilka as arbi was supposed to mean colocasia/taro. The person reviewing interpreted arbi as a person from Arabia and felt chilka would be inappropriate as chaal more accurate.

That version was retained... Well, otherwise you would have found God in taro. ;)

Ramki Krishnan said...

Congratulations Sanjay!
Very enjoyable grid - thrilled to have got all correct :)
Thanks Shuchi and Kishore.

Vasant said...

Shuchi:It would be good to know how many people participated and who they were.
I had sent the puzzles to many and a few wrote back to me saying they had very much enjoyed solving.

Shuchi said...

@vasant: Did they send in their submissions?

Vasant said...

Two did and one of them is in the top 11.

Shuchi said...

@vasant: Not sure if I am following you right...did the one not in the top 11 have an all-correct? If yes, could they get in touch with me and I will verify?

Vasant said...

One of them was a first time solver who got three wrong. He really enjoyed it.

Shuchi said...

OK, then there is no issue with the shortlist, is there?

Please convey our thanks to your friends who tried the puzzle. Happy to hear they enjoyed it.

Vasant said...

There is absolutely nothing wrong in the short list. An enjoyable puzzle was enjoyed by many:-)

THE BANKER said...

Thanks Everyone. The setters did a great job I sincerely hope to see many such novel themes by Shuchi & Co in future.
It is heartening to see that almost all all-correct entries are from IXL veterans.
A grid is born to be broken and solved. Let us keep doing it.

Viresh Ratnakar said...

I've been meaning to do this for a while, and have got around to it, finally. Exolve (the open source software that I've written, for interactively solvable crosswords) now supports all languages+Scripts (including Hindi+Devanagari).

You can see a simple proof-of-concept example at https://viresh-ratnakar.github.io/test-hindi.html

You can also get all the details in the Exolve documentation (https://github.com/viresh-ratnakar/exolve/blob/master/README.md), especially in the newly added "exolve-language" and "exolve-relabel" sections.

I expect there will be bug/issues initially, but I'll be happy to address them, and hopefully we can converge on something reliable soon.

Shuchi said...

Hi Viresh,

Thanks a lot for working on this! Was able to type in Hindi letters into the grid using Chrome. Ran into issues with other browsers, perhaps due to settings at my end. Let me try more over the weekend, and shall we discuss this offline? Could you write to me at shuchi [at] crosswordunclued.com?

I am absolutely thrilled!

saurabh_surendra said...

So, when is the next post coming?

Shuchi said...

@saurabh_surendra: Hopefully when I take that two-week leave :P

Till then, do try this crossword and the older ones in the series!