No 12922, Wednesday 29 Apr 2020, Gridman

Day No 36 of 40 Stay safe at home

Solution to 14D has been deliberately left unsolved and is to be answered only by a non-regular/novice commenter, with proper annotation. Those who have answered earlier in the week, please give others a chance.

ACROSS
1   We need to do nothing to be so (8) INACTIVE [CD]
5   Almost declare about section of ancient city (6) SPARTA {S{PART}Ay}
10 Vanishing point? (4,3) THIN AIR [CD]
11 Goalie running around United leader gets accolades (7) EULOGIA {E{Un...d}LOGIA*}
12 A kind of condom may be made fun of (6) RIBBED [DD]
13 No uniform for this person (8) CIVILIAN [CD]
15 That man’s a journalist. Take care! (4) HEED {HE}{ED}
16 Sarah’s turned to men in street in constant intimidation (10) HARASSMENT {SARAH*}{S{MEN}T}
18 Press media employee worsened it by poor handling (4,6) NEWS EDITOR*
20 Chop up hardwood? (4) HASH {H}{ASH}
23 Adoption by Poles settled around the States (8) ESPOUSAL {ESPO{USA}L}
24 Go with complaint relating to digestion (6) PEPTIC {PEP}{TIC}
26 Brother to have central lien on old camera (7) BROWNIE {BR}{OWN}{lIEn}

27 Trooped off to get a missile (7) TORPEDO*
28 There’s the struggling woman (6) ESTHER*
29 Kind of permit for an architectural technique (4-4) OPEN-WORK [DD]

DOWN
1   Easy to swap out. Nitre may be got (15) INTERCHANGEABLE {NITRE}* [RA]
2   French friend clever and good-humoured (7) AMIABLE {AMI}{ABLE}
3   Laughed at model and toned down (6) TEASED {T}{EASED}
4   Change central savant’s line (4) VARY {saVAnt}{RY}
6   It’s ample, extravagant and most prosperous (8) PALMIEST*
7   Music — Indian music form not completely given by US magazine (7) RAGTIME {RAGa}{TIME}

8   Under time pressure, somehow tack a close thing (7,3,5) AGAINST THE CLOCK*
9   I think tyrant leaves Chhattisgarh’s capital after me (9) MEDITATOR {ME}{DIcTATOR}
14 Sanctioned half of suitcase I saw (9) VALIDATED {VALise}{I}{DATED}
17 In France, what is in exotic scene? Particular order (8) SEQUENCE {SE{QUE}NCE}
19 Nuke without the paper dropping exercise (4,3) WIPE OUT WI(-th+pe}PEOUT
21 A right code set out for a building design style (3,4) ART DECO {A}{RT}{CODE*}
22 Proceed as new oar is handed out (4,2) WEAR ON*
25 Don’t move broken pots (4) STOP*

Reference List
Journalist = ED, Street = ST, Hard = H, Brother = BR, Friend in French = AMI, Model = T, Line = RY(Railway), What in French = QUE, Paper = TH(The Hindu), Exercise = PE, Right = RT,

Dr RKEs TalePiece

ESTHER Kunjumol, was the star performer in the 4 x 400 metre relay during the PALMIEST age of Indian women runners. Her father, a toddy tapper, had died when she was young, after a botched PEPTIC ulcer surgery. Notwithstanding their SPARTAn circumstances, her mother had encouraged her to follow her dream of being an athlete. Her uncles and aunts often RIBBED about it saying "do you think she is a P T Usha?". Esther paid no HEED to being TEASED thus. She had an AMIABLE P.T. master in school, who, sensing the talent and ambition in the young Esther arranged for her training by a reputed coach at a posh sports academy at Kochi. A NEWS EDITOR of a Malayalam daily, a classmate of the PT master, had arranged to raise funds for the coaching through an appeal in the paper. Being an uncouth village girl, Esther had to face HARASSMENT from the rich girls in the sports academy. But nothing could STOP her burning ambition to improve her rhythm of running and her timing. It was literally a race AGAINST THE CLOCK. As the training sessions tended to WEAR ON, it was clear to the coach that Esther's was a rare talent. His firm ESPOUSAL of her candidature in the National Relay Team overcame objections from the CIVILIAN babus in the Sports Ministry. Her sterling performances in several athletic meets only VALIDATED his choice.

Her role in winning the gold at the Asian games in Beijing was the stuff of legends. She was the last in the SEQUENCE of the four runners. A misstep in handing over the baton between the first two runners meant that Esther was the fourth to leave the starting line of the last lap. She still trailed woefully behind the Chinese and Korean athletes after the first 200 metres. Esther's teammates had their hopes WIPEd out and dejectedly watched their visions of winning the gold go up in THIN AIR. By sheer willpower, Esther outran the Korean girl but at 20 metres to the finish line she was yet behind the tall Chinese girl. At this point, she heard an inner voice of her mother telling her "odu moley, odu". She charged ahead like a TORPEDO and breasted the tape ahead of her rival by 0.4 seconds in a photo finish. There was no end to the EULOGIA in the front page coverage by newspapers. Nowadays, she would have become a trending HASHtag on Twitter for such a feat, but those were the good old days.