The Hindu Crossword

The Hindu comes out every weekday with a crossword composed by an Indian setter.

And on seeing the word setter meaning of-course the compiler of the crossword, if you could
also immediately think of a breed of dog, then you could look forward to some fun time everyday
with the THC (The Hindu Crossword), if you are not into it already.

What is the difference between a pill and a hill?

The simple answer is that one goes down and the other goes up. If you are posed a series of such questions then after a certain lapse, you will get the hang of it and would start giving your answers.

It is the same process with the crossword. To get the hang of it you should start looking into the
clues and try to figure it out.

These days, it is all about  going to coaching classes and getting trained. Thanks to the internet
you have two very good sites to help you in this regard with no need to go in search of someone.

Everyday, almost exactly at 8.30 AM the day's crossword is solved and also annotated (meaning
explaining how the answer is arrived at) in the blog thehinducrosswordcorner.blogspot.com.
So even after knowing the answer to a clue, one need not break his head trying to figure out how
the answer was arrived at.

And to get tutored in solving clues the website www.crosswordunclued.com is without parallel.

A farewell note: You may occasionally come across a clue like this one, which appeared in
today's (29.6.2012) Hindu:

Br(branch)anch (3,2,3) Answer: Arm-in-arm

This kind of clue gets reviews on either side of the spectrum. One expert calls it a cute clue
while another remarks thus: Not sure how to qualify this. The wordplay was clear enough, but without a definition it feels incomplete.

Let the beginner keep such clues at arm's length. Some may welcome such clues with open arm's while others may take up arms!

For me, it is: Ernest Hemingway!
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Ernest Hemingway's autobiographical novel is: A Farewell to Arms.

Ice Ice Baby

Ice Ice Baby is a hip-hop song by American rapper Vanilla Ice when he was sixteen years old.
I just happened to remember this song.

Talking of Ice, we all have certain preferences in our life which we adhere to. My friend PRS (Mani)
had a preference for Ice cologne and whenever someone went to Singapore, he would ask them to
bring Ice for himself:




In my own family, we have been using Colgate toothpaste for decades and will never ever change our brand.
Only thing is we were cut up when they brought in several varieties in it. Today many just ask for Colgate and take whatever variety is handed over to them!!

Medium tending towards fine

What is "Medium tending towards fine"?

My friend Jaisiri who is a fountain pen aficionado will know.

When I went to Gem and Co. years back to buy a fountain pen, the salesman gave
me a few pens which I tried. The flow from one particular nib fascinated me.

After I selected my pen, he said: Fit it with a nib, medium tending towards fine.

The next time I went to that shop, I spoke like an expert (which I am not!)
'I want this pen with a medium nib, medium, tending towards fine!'

Work and Workmanship

Most workers complete the work given to them. But only a select few can display their skill
and workmanship in performing a particular job.

I took delivery of our Madipakkam flat last year and we occupied it. The doors are fitted with
Godrej knobs with self-locking mechanism.

After about a month or so, one of the doors got locked. Though I had the key with me, it would
not open. I preferred a complaint with the builder but even after three or four days they could not
attend to it.

It is then that I remembered a person who had his workshop in the same street where we had
our workshop in Sripuram. We had purchased an old Godrej safe and he repaired and painted it.
He was a very good workman and was also a franchisee to Godrej, servicing their locks and sometimes
attending to bank lockers to break open the locks and replace them. Yes, at times one forgets where
he or she had kept the locker key. It happened to me too once!

I rang up Godrej and asked them to give me his phone number which they readily did. I rang him
up and he came within hours. He broke open the lock within minutes and also explained why it
had got stuck. There was some foreign material (traces of paint) inside. It was not properly fixed
in the first place. He charged me Rs.300 which I gladly gave. He also advised me that Godrej
would give a free replacement. I informed this to my builder and they took the defective one and
replaced with a new one.

Now that is what I call: WORKMANSHIP.

NEKOMATA

In Japanese folklore, a nekomata is a cat with a forked tail. Simply said, a cat with two tails.

In reality I once got a two-tailed one paisa copper coin from a shop-keeper. The shop-keeper was
morose that someone had duped him. I was only too glad to have it from him.

I was holding on to the coin for a few years swith the fold belief that one day it would fetch me
maybe, a lakh of rupees!

One day I showed this coin to my friend PRS (Mani) and he told me that he would like to have it.
Our friendship was worth more than a lakh of rupees and hence I had no second thought in parting
that coin and handing it over to him. But this was many years back.

Today I know that that coin having both sides tail (an error coin) could be at the most worth
a few hundred rupees. But the value of our friendship remains the same, invaluable.

Stationary shops?

No. Not Stationary. Stationery shops.

As a young person I used to frequent the V. Perumal Chetty Store in the LIC Building. I would buy the Hoe and Co diary.

In later years I sometimes went to George Town area and have a look at the stationery shops in Anderson and Bunder Street areas.

In Mount Road area my favorite haunts were International Traders, Wilfred Stores and the one in
State Bank Street.

The most famous shop in our area is the one known as Camlin shop. Actually the company is
Hindustan Trading Corporation and in later years I supplied an air-conditioner to the owner.
It is one shop where you could get all art materials. Now that shop has shifted to the first floor
of Pratap Plaza (Vitan complex) in Royapettah High Road.

The other shops in our area are the Amar's Traders in the corner of A.S.Salai and R.H. Road.
A nice shop. The most popular in Gopalapuram? Of course it is AA Traders, since it is
situated very near the schools. Aslam is a good friend of mine and he also happens to be
my nephew  Prakash's classmate. Did I supply an air-conditioner to him? Yes, I did.

The A-Premier stores in Mowbray's Road is one very good shop. The owners are related to
Amar's.

As a young boy I went to Indo-Burma Stationers at George Town and was awe struck. Being a whole sale
shop, it was huge.

Few years back the stationery shops used to do good business during March and April, as business
houses were busy buying ledgers, note-books and so on. After the advent of computerised accounting,
Tally and all that, ledgers are just not available. 

I love the Ashwini 80 pages note-book and on once occasion when the particular size was not
available I traced down the manufacturer and sent a boy all the way to Tondiarpet to their factory
to get the note-books for me. I had made a habit of using these note-books as my enquiry register
and would hate to have a note-book of different size as the most recent one.

ITC has made very good inroads into this market with their Classmate series. Talking of classmate,
I am reminded of a joke told by Anand, PRS(Mani)'s friend: We are not only classmates, but
glassmates, too!!

And if you wondered how I could reel out so many stationery shops, it was my dream to own a
nice looking stationery shop, leaving my sales job, stop wandering around and stay stationary
in my stationery shop!!!

Lending Library

A library lends books.

What then is a lending library? A lending library lends books charging a fee to keep the book
with us for a given number of days.

The Easwari Lending Library in its website says that it was started in the year 1955. Actually
it started of as a shop collecting waste paper and the like.

It was my friend Ambi (Sundaram) who was one among the very first customers and who paved
the way for it to become a lending library. His father was a voracious reader of western fiction. So
I used to go along with my pal Ambi and pick up two or three books at a time for his father to read.

How are you sure that your father has not read this book, I would sometimes ask him. Neither am I
sure nor my father would be, he would reply! My friend's father Shri V.S. Mani Iyer, besides
reading a book used to relax in his easy-chair and munch his betel and tobacco.

Easwari thus became one of the pioneers in the lending library. Though Palani himself could not
read a English fiction book, he could pick up any title or show you where books of your favorite
author was.

During my school final, my friend Ravi introduced me to James Hadley Chase and I used to
read one book every day, borrowing it from Easwari. I borrowed the Jeeves series.

Kids borrowed Enid Blyton and the women, Mills and Boon.

Palani's two sons have developed the business well. They have a decent website: www.easwarilibrary.com.

Of late I find a lot of venture capital pumped into this business. Though I wish them well, I am doubtful
of their business model (one even released a full page ad in the newspaper)and whether they will be able to turn out a profit.

What do you want to do when you grow old? As a young lad, I often dreamt of owning a lending library!!
And the other two businesses: Printing Press and Stationery shop.