9x9 misery

If I haven’t been posting of late it is because I have lost my soul to Sudoku. Also most of my time, my peace of mind and whatever little I have that can reasonably be called a brain. I know, I know – I have nothing to say in my defense. I am a Sudoku Slave and it is time to freely and frankly own up to it.

But really … you have to try it yourself before you judge me. It has something evil about it, this vile, fiendish, diabolical, infuriating 9x9 numeric configuration, that won’t let you go once it’s got its talons into you. You will only know once you have taken the plunge.

It began innocently enough one morning when I found myself on a longish flight without a book, and nothing other than The Times of India and Jetwings as literary stimulation (a condition deserving of sympathy, you will agree, and one that left me understandably vulnerable to what followed next). What followed next was my First Encounter with Sudoku. Having avoided it thus far out of (a perfectly natural and healthy) distaste for anything numerical, I was pushed into a tentative experiment with it after having finished with the crossword, the Spellathon, the Scramble, the Mindbender and other similar distractions offered by the TOI. And sure enough, my first encounter reinforced the wisdom of staying away from all things numeric. I filled in several wrong numbers in several wrong boxes, scratched them out, filled in some more wrong numbers, and 45 minutes later pronounced it a silly puzzle and stuffed the paper back into the seat pocket.

That, in all honesty, should have been that. But then the Brat next to me picked it up. A child who could not have been more than 7, who asked to borrow my paper, then asked to borrow my pen, and then, with my pen and my paper, over my crossed out wrong numbers, proceeded to fill in the right numbers in less than ten minutes. I saw him smirk as he returned the pen. Really, I would have been ok but for that smirk.

Gentle reader, it was a crushed and despondent me that walked into my house that morning. I eyed the newspaper for a long time before giving in. The smirky child needed to be Put In His Place, even if only in my mind. And so I picked up a fresh clean Sudoku, with a pencil this time.

Five and a half hours later, I emerged triumphant. Aaaah, I cannot describe the elation of that moment. The joy of a filled-in Sudoku, with each row, each column, each cluster of 3x3 boxes perfectly fitting into each other. Nine beautiful numbers, nine times over, blending into each other in 27 different patterns. Magic!

And now, of course, the TOI Sudoku no longer provides the same kick. Nor the one in The Hindu. They are gone in less than 9 minutes. Everyday, I need something stronger. I prowl Sudoku websites for more and more challenging puzzles. I am told it is possible to download one on my phone. Ah, it is a curse, this thing. A curse if you solve it too quickly. A curse if you cannot solve it quickly enough.

Unsuspecting reader who has not yet discovered this self-inflicted torture, I implore you to stay away.

But then again, what a pity that would be.