LA TIMES to publish Vashi resident's Crossword soon

(Hindustan Times; Mar 01 '10)

Mangesh Sakharam Ghogre, a resident of New Panvel, has become the first constructor based in India to get his crossword puzzle accepted by Los Angeles Times (LAT). The crossword will be published in the March 9 issue.

Mangesh, who is a professional investment banker with an MNC bank in Mumbai and is an alumnus of Mahatma School, Panvel and Fr. Agnel Junior College, Vashi, has been an avid crossword solver for the past 13 years. What started as a pastime during his engineering days at Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) eventually evolved into a passionate hobby and has now reached a distinct milestone.

He remembers: "When I started solving the daily crossword, for the first three months I didn't need a pen because I simply didn't know the answers. But I knew I had a hang for words. I pursued solving it daily and checking the answers the next day. The key to this hobby is patience and diligence."

After over a dozen years of solving experience, it was a matter of time that he moved on to crossword construction. He adds: "In early 2009, I started thinking about creating my own crossword to improve my solving skills. Since the crossword primarily caters to American audience, I struggled with clues relating to local trivia and lingo. I thought why not create my own to ease matters."

Not a cake-walk by any standards, the initial few attempts at construction met with stiff challenges and frustration. Committed that he was, he invested a few hundred dollars to buy the software which most regular crossword constructors use.

As one would imagine, another major hurdle for Mangesh was that sitting in New Panvel he had to create a crossword which appealed a solver based in Seattle. He adds: "I have never visited America. Apart from solving the LAT daily crossword, my only windows to their culture was Hollywood movies and local newspapers." Creating a consistent theme which uses `in-the-language' phrases is the biggest challenge for a constructor. Rich Norris, the crossword editor for Los Angeles Times wrote in his acceptance email: "Mangesh's puzzle has a very amusing and clever theme". He appreciated "the non- theme fill is also quite nicely done" and described the puzzle as "fine work". Mangesh has already received invites to be interviewed by prominent bloggers who solve and analyse the Daily Crossword in LAT.

But all this has not come easy. "For a newbie like me, constructing a crossword takes almost 20-30 hours of intense effort. Playing with English language, during that time, becomes your sole obsession", he says.