When anyone asks me, that what are my hobbies, I always say reading, movies and music – the usual stuff. For some strange reason, I never say puzzles. On an average I do one puzzle everyday! (And that should make it a serious hobby, shouldn’t it? More serious than reading, music or movies, for I neither read a book everyday, nor do I see a movie everyday!) But for some odd reason, I never enlist solving puzzles as my hobby. I have always enjoyed doing puzzles, right from childhood. It started from Fun pads filled with jumbled words, silly crosswords and find-the-words. I graduated to more serious cross words and word searches. Then to on-line games like Text Twist and Eight. Ok, so now a puzzle for you people – What is common in all the games up above? Socho socho… Need a clue? Ok, read the list once again, and the answer would leap right out of the words! Got it? I already gave you the answer! No, one more clue? Hmm, the answer is a word… Which word? Any word! Yeah, that’s the answer. Words! I have always done word puzzles. Number puzzles somehow failed to capture my interest. That was until I was introduced to SuDoKu! Now SuDoKu strictly speaking is not a Number Puzzle (for that mater, even if you don’t speak strictly, it is not a number puzzle!!!) For the numbers in SuDoKu can be easily replaced by alphabets, or any other symbol for that matter… SuDoKu is a test of logical thinking (And that is something that I can manage!) SuDoKu is a recent rage. I saw it in the papers everyday, but seeing all the numbers, I stayed away from it. One fine day, my dad said, “Have you started solving SuDoKu?” and I said, “No, number puzzles are not my cup of tea.” That’s when he shook his head and said, “Try it.” Try it I did, and how! Now, I do them like crazy – the harder the better! So how is it played? The rules are simple. There are nine boxes, each of 9 squares, arranged as a 9×9 grid. All you have to do is fill the numbers 1-9 in each row, each column and each small square. And why am I giving out the rules? Because I have two puzzles for you here… Go ahead, play on…
This is the first…
And this is the second!
Happy solving….