Friday 25 September 2015

No 11509, Friday 25 Sep 2015, Afterdark


On a tour of Indian states with Afterdark.

ACROSS
1   Lunatic prayed Shah to reorganise central region (6,7) MADHYA PRADESH {MAD}{PRAYED+SHAH}*
10 Nanny's surname misspelt on ID (9) NURSEMAID {SURNAME*}{ID}
11 Concentrate first on career, upliftment, service primarily (5) FOCUS Acrostic
12 Dye layer is on new attire's tip (5) HENNA {HEN}{New}{At...e}
13 State of tragic hero in Indian epic at odds with king; sad essentially (9) KARNATAKA {KARNA}{AT*}{K}{sAd}
14 City Banks union follows advisory with keenness (6) ACUITY {C{U}ITY} after {A}
16 First smoke joint, float! No much bigger (4) SHIP {Sm..e}{HIP}
19 Gym cashier contributing to a non-profit organisation, say (4) YMCA [T] Enu should have been (1,1,1,1)
20 No luck breaking open (6) UNLOCK*
25 King's call up decoded in ship to procure headgears (9) SKULLCAPS {S{K}{CALL+UP}*S}
26 Jump a car without power/energy (5) CAPER {CA{P}{E}R}
27 L Sign (5) LIBRA [CD]
28 Buzzer gives a large projection to account for low loss at the beginning (5,4) ALARM BELL {A}{L}{ARM} {BE}{Low}{Loss}
29 Good cocktail, drunk stores Ohio for shots, but not in the air (6,7) GROUND STROKES {G}{ROUND} {STRO{K}ES*} Anno not clear, K for Ohio? (Addendum - {G}{DRUNK+STORES}* around {O} - See comments)

DOWN
2   Agony aunt is after a point made by radical Ohio pilot (8) AERONAUT {A}{E}{R}{O}{AUNT*}
3   Bird having male chromosome mated with one animal (5) HYENA {H{Y}EN}{A}
4   A girl almost touched jumping snake at an American state (6) ALASKA {A}{LASs}{KA}
5   Association for the inflamed and angry (3,5) RED CROSS {RED}{CROSS}
6   Terribly inflated, nothing in it. No, it is not inflation, just the opposite (9) DEFLATION {O} in INFLATED*
7   Significant other meets first lover, odd climax in get-together (6) SOCIAL {Si...t}{Ot..r}{ClImAx}{Lo...r}
8   Our neighbour's hand broke, applied cream regularly (6) ANDHRA {HAND*}{cReAm}
9   A service reciprocated by one of the seven sisters (5) ASSAM {A}{SSAM<=}
15 State ambiguously 'Im an adult' (5,4) TAMIL NADU {I'M+AN+ADULT}*
17 Indian chef is coming up after Harry's daughter; she is one of the 29 (8) SARABAND {SARA}BAN{D} Anno pending, if I'm right (Addendum - NAGALAND {NAG}{ALAN<=}{D} - See comments}
18 Company representative gets permission to collect final due in total (8) COMPLETE {CO}{MP}{LET}{duE}
21 Innovative lawbreaker, smuggles brew out of state (6) KERALA LAwbreAKER*
22 Lighting lamps in prayer (5) PSALM*
23 Conductor of vehicle is at saloon (6) BUSBAR {BUS}{BAR}
24 Age, sex, location of worker sent across (6) ASLANT {Age}{Sex}{Lo...n}{ANT} Is an indicator missing?
26 Mercurial comedian stands out of din in a brief appearance (5) CAMEO COMEdiAn*

GRID

66 comments:

  1. 17 Indian chef is coming up after Harry's daughter; she is one of the 29 (8) SARABAND {SARA}BAN{D} Anno pending, if I'm right

    I had filled in NAGALAND but unable to annotate it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brilliant. Is Indian chef: NALA? reverse that after NAG and followed by D

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    2. Thanks MB & Raghu. I should have thought of that

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  2. 29 Good cocktail, drunk stores Ohio for shots, but not in the air (6,7) GROUND STROKES {G}{ROUND} {STRO{K}ES*} Anno not clear, K for Ohio?

    G+ DRUNK+STORES around O. cocktail is*

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  3. I'm in Coimbatore for my mothers 90th B'day today

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    Replies
    1. Wishes Colonel and prayers for a long and happy life. Have a great time. What an opportunity :)

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    2. She should feel doubly happy- having her son come along to wish her at 90. Adding my prayers for a long healthy life.May she hit a century.

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    3. Please convey my best wishes

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    4. May she score a century! Please convey my wishes Col Sir.

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    5. Thanks Paddy, Ajeesh, Kishore and MB

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    6. Wishes sir for her good health and happiness

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    7. My wishes & namaskaar to your mom sir :)

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  4. 8D I am the neighbour? I thought The Hindu was a national paper.)).

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  5. Whatever Nala did, he did not make samosa!
    At least from the theme I should have got the state of Nagaland. Well done MB & Raghu. Neighbours do well.

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    Replies
    1. I was quoting AD. Neighbours normally live in the same street. So adjacent states could also be neighbours. Not necessarily adjacent countries.

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    2. I meant 'we' for us in Telangana.

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  6. A cousin of mine, an avid crossword solver, does not do the THC cw because he mistakenly believes the clues are Tamilnadised.

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  7. The anagrams are brilliantly done. Even after filling I found it difficult to get the components in some.
    Felt a little ashamed for my delay in getting 'Busbar' a word handled daily in electrical stream.

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    Replies
    1. No such problem for me..could get busbar at a go having to deal with aluminum & copper busbars daily..as i work in an electrochemical plant profucing caustic soda & chlorine

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    2. I had thought of Padmanabhan while filling in BUSBAR.

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    3. Makes it harder to swallow. Thank you anyway.

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    4. We thought of Aakash . He was 1 hr late to bar and made us wait by taking 335 E bus

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  8. Delicious samosa today too! Devoured it!! Thank you Afterdark. :-)))

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    Replies
    1. Have a light lunch. Of late, you have been having quite a few samosas!! Keep it up.

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    2. Ha! Just two only...yesterday and today...rest of the time...hardly any...of course a few now and then! :)

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  9. 29A- G (Drunk stores)*O
    Exactly what I meant in my 8.49.

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  10. Sorry. I did not see Raghu's earlier comment.

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  11. Surprised myself by completing tge puzzle in 20 min..started late at 8:30..superb tour of indian states with a heady cocktail of all clue types put in trademark AD style...

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  12. Best wishes, Col to your mother for turning 90.

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  13. Colonel on 24D I used it from chat lingo. Remember 26 Female Kottayam ?

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  14. Free dictionary gives 'Neighbour states' as one of the def. So AD is not off the mark.

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  15. Nagaland and Ground Strokes denied me samosas:(( - Otherwise an enjoyable one

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  16. Nala Bheema pakam where Mala implies cook. Telugu and probably Sanskrit.

    Paddy, you miss the point. I meant that Andhra is a neighbour of TN but not for most of the other Indian States.

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    Replies
    1. Yes - I was foxed since I live in Kolkata and read the local edition here

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  17. AD, What does 'Ohio' in 29A signify?

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    Replies
    1. U I thought you had meant O for Ohio in your earlier post. ( I am not sure about its acceptability)

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    2. Ohio is for O and also a name of a cocktail

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  18. Col, pl get your mother's blessings to all of us - I think all of us are less than 90!

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  19. Happy Birthday to your dear Mom, Deepak. !! Spend as much time as you can with her and treat hr like a 09 !! God bless you and your Mom. Sapna joins me in this.

    When I last saw her at your sister's she ddn't seem like nearing the nineties ! May her hit a century.

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  20. 1A Is it ok to have 2 anagram indicators - Lunatic and reorganise

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually there are no two anag signals there. The solution is got by a charade which has a partial anagram (to classify the clue type).
      MAD (lunatic) plus anag of ' prayed Shah' for which the anag signal is 'to reorganise'.
      The Col has correctly indicated it in his anno in black following the soln in blue.

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  21. A couple of ingredients lacking for my samosa. BUSBAR got GROUNDed and gave me a STROKE.

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  22. Sweet geographic xword from AD. Good tour of india though did expect sth above MP to appear in the north... didnt realise the neighbor was 8 and 15d :)tks for tat explanation.. yes perhaps the THC is a bit tamilized considering the lineage... but not unsolvable for others as well

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  23. Col. Namaskarams to your mother on her 90th birthday.

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    Replies
    1. Best wishes from my family and self. May God grant her long life and good health.

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  24. Wish your mother many happy returns of the day, Deepak

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  25. Nice puzzle. wonderful clues.12&25a nice.My cod is17d.The catch is in 29 and not 29a.wow.All stated, an engaging and entertaining puzzle. Thank you AD.

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  26. Please pass on my best wishes to your mother Colonel. We seek her blessings on this wonderful occasion.

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  27. Wish your mother many happy returns of the day, Colonel!

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