No 12948, Friday 29 May 2020, Bruno

Day 66 of 68 Stay safe at home

(I am maintaining lockdown till 31 May)

RULES FOR POSTING COMMENTS ON FRIDAYS ONLY

All those who are not regular commenters but who are rookie commenters or silent followers of the blog are requested to post answers with annotations in the comments section. In your own interest please avoid looking up the answers from the interactive version. Don't hesitate to post your annotations, in case you make a mistake in the annotation someone will correct it with the right annotation.

PLEASE NOTE, SOLUTIONS WITHOUT ATTEMPTING THE ANNOTATIONS WILL BE DELETED

Each commenter is requested to post only 5 answers thereby giving others also a chance to participate. Please provide all your answers in one comment.

Regular solvers/Veterans can post 1 answer each, but after 11 AM only

The regular blog will replace the clues at 4 PM.

Thanks for the response, here's the regular blog.

ACROSS
6   Pale climber carrying gold (5) IVORY {IV{OR}Y}
7   Dangerous very large rattler’s head cut off (8) VENOMOUS {V}{ENOrMOUS}
10 More distant brother finally embraced by one parent (7) FARTHER {FA{b...eR}THER}
11 Old island pass (7) EXCRETE {EX}{CRETE}
12 Spiny plant’s each cut hurt (7) CATECHU*

13 Odd that world body and America adopted Universal language at first (7) UNUSUAL {UN}{USA}{U}{La...e}
14 What limits mother? For one, man and little sibling... (11) PARENTHESIS {PARENT}{HE}{SIS}
19 Secretary turned to leave from set — it came to an end (7) POINTED apPOINTED
21 Revolutionary mobilises billion Indian leaders to quit with grace (7) LISSOME MObiLISES*
23 Fruit’s ripe — so mix it with a little honey (7) ROSEHIP {RIPE+SO+Ho..y}*

25 After dessert, finally, put out chocolate candy (7) TRUFFLE {d...rT}{RUFFLE}

26 One with the will to challenge a peak (8) TESTATOR {TEST}{A}{TOR}
27 Marker made from soft synthetic material not nice to begin with (5) PYLON {P}{nYLON}

DOWN
1   Nasty odors in front of household animal running up entrance (8) DOORSTEP {ODORS*}{PET<=}
2   Setter’s mostly stupid? That's not real! (6) MYTHIC {MY}{THICk}
3   Inverted, open and under construction (10) OVERTURNED {OVERT}{UNDER*}
4   Cry pulling up end of broken joint (4) KNEE {EEK<=} over {b...eN} (Addendum - K(+n)NEE(-n) - See comments)
5   Business’s backup procuring fertilizer (6) BUREAU {B}{UREA}{U}
6   Dirty sink — Frank punches out John (6) INFECT IN(-j+f)FECT
8   Plans for prisons starting to get 20-fold bigger (4-3) MOCK-UPS (-l+m)MOCK-UPS
9   Traded salted nuts after skipping last class... (5) DEALT sALTED*
13 ... covering work plus theory (10) UPHOLSTERY*
15 Device with which informer secret-agent finally trapped revolutionary (7) RATCHET {RAT}{CHE}{s...nT}
16 These days in San Francisco — perfect cold weather (8) SNOWFALL {S{NOW}F}{ALL}
17 After work time for play (5) OPERA {OP}{ERA}
18 Senior faculty hid engineer’s disgrace (6) DEMEAN {DE{ME}AN}
20 Supplier’s petition breaks one's right (6) ISSUER {1'S}{SUE}{R}
22 Couplets composed lacked poem's essential elements or form (6) SCULPT CoUPLeTS*
24 Core of stone’s hot (4) PITH {PIT}{H}

Reference List
Gold = OR, Very = V, Old = EX, Universal = U, Secretary = PA, Soft = P, Back = B, Up = U, Frank = F, John = J, L = 50, M = 1000, Work = OP, Engineer = ME, Right = R, Hot = H

Dr RKE's TalePiece

VishnuRaj, the Kannada screen idol, was standing at dawn on the DOORSTEP of “Nature Trails”, a secluded forest lodge, listening to the call of the birds. From behind the trees, 3 masked men silently approached VishnuRaj from behind and pounced on him. One gagged him and the other bound his KNEES and the one with a huge moustache and a rifle directed the other two. They carried him to a jeep parked nearby. The film hero, who had DEALT with a bunch of opponents on celluloid single-handedly in MOCK-UP fight scenes, became a tame victim in real life. Thus, began one of the most famous kidnapping cases in the country.

The intelligence BUREAU people felt that the modus operandi POINTED to the IVORY and sandalwood smuggler, Dheerappan. This notorious brigand, roamed free in the forests, shifting his camp ever so often, eluding the police of three states. Dheerappan acted as a savior of the tribals in the jungles and they would never betray him. Dheerappan had always projected to them that the police and forest officials as more VENOMOUS than the snakes of the forest. He had acquired a MYTHIC aura of being untraceable and invincible as he had OVERTURNED the efforts of the police to nab him alive or dead on at least 18 occasions. Unable to face the criticism from the media, the police had to RATCHET their efforts to trace the abductor and the matinee idol. But the FARTHER they went into the forest, the greater the obstacles they faced in this UNUSUAL terrain. Days turned to weeks and then months and they were no closer to tracing the missing actor. Dheerappan, fed by information from informers who INFECT the police ranks and who were in his pay, always stayed a step ahead.

VishnuRaj, meanwhile, had got used to life in the jungle. He was cared for tenderly by Dheerappan’s LISSOME woman commander, Gouramma, to whom VishnuRaj was a demi-god. She even managed to cure VishnuRaj of diarrhoea and fever with a concoction of CATECHU. She made a straw bed for him, an adequate substitute for the fine UPHOLSTERY that he was used to. His health actually improved because of the spartan diet and the clean air coupled with all the exercise of walking miles everyday. Over time, VishnuRaj, became sympathetic to the cause of the captors- I must mention in PARENTHESES that this is called Stockholm syndrome. This was surprising to Dheerappan. Slowly and steadily, VishnuRaj was able to soften the attitude of his abductors, make them see reason and almost got to the point of securing his own release.  The Government, which first thought it was DEMEANing to give into the demands of the villain, finally decided to relent and was about to ISSUE orders for quashing the 28 criminal cases against Dheerappan, in order to secure the release of VishnuRaj.  But Dheerappan knew full well that such a pardon would only mean a more concerted effort by the forces to encounter him and shoot him at sight, without any trial. The police and the administration were pleasantly surprised one morning to see VishnuRaj back near a forest outpost. Dheerappan’s only reward for the kidnapping was the snub he gave to the combined might of the police of 3 states.