TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Hi. I'm Mangeesh Ghogre. I'm a crossword constructor, and you are listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. My name is Abhay Dandekar, and I share conversations with talented and interesting individuals linked to the global Indian and South Asian community. It's informal and informative, adding insights to our evolving cultural expressions where each person can proudly say trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Periodically on TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I’m DOING, we share a spotlight conversation and feature brief chats with an individual from the community about a special topic or a unique endeavor. So, you know, I thought that today we would focus on the world of puzzles. As kids young and old, we are fascinated and curious about putting together random pieces of cardboard to make a picture or taking numbers or scenes or words and fitting them together to make something whole, craving that satisfaction to find the answer, and, of course, all the frustrations and exhilarations that come with it. Whether you're doing Sudoku or playing a game or proving online that we're human and not robots, puzzles keep our minds focused on solving problems.

For many across the world, crossword puzzles are part of a daily routine, trying to find different ways to use and frame words from clues that playfully speak to everyday culture, trivia, knowledge, and even local or global nuances. So it was really fun to catch up with crossword puzzle constructor Mangesh Ghogre, the 1st India based crossword constructor for the Los Angeles Times in 2010 and the New York Times in 2013. Mangesh is an investment banker and a writer and has had a true passion as a crossword puzzle solver and constructor since his college days. His expertise has developed over decades, and his work in writing have been featured in The New Yorker, The Times of India, and The Economic Times among others. Mangesh is currently the editor and constructor for the mini crossword in the Forbes India Magazine, and some of his marquee New York Times crosswords include a 4th July themed crossword in 2017, a Mahatma Gandhi themed crossword in 2019 to celebrate Gandhiji's 150th birth anniversary, and a Taj Mahal themed crossword in 2023 to celebrate India's Independence Day.

I was able to chat with him this summer, and in true puzzle solving fashion, we started out with the basics.

How did crosswords particularly pique your interest? And the reason I asked that is because is puzzle building and the patience required to build and master and solve problems, are they all kind of proxies for your own personality as well?
I think multiple questions on that. The first one, how did crosswords pick my interest?

It was slightly, incidental. So when I when I was in my 1st year of engineering way back in 1997 in VJTI, if you are familiar in Mumbai, you know, it was pretty much powerful course for people to study the barons word list to prepare for either the GRE or the GMAT. And I was in hostel, and I was surrounded by all these, you know, top rankers academically, brilliant minds who, you know, wanted to improve their vocabulary. And at our at our hostel breakfast table, we used to wonder whether solving the times of India crossword will help us improve our vocabulary. Yeah.

And that's where my journey started. That, you know so we were like and I come from Marathi background. I used to I grew up in Panvel, at the on the outskirts of Mumbai. Though I went to an English medium school, but in those days, you know, early eighties, even though you went to an English medium school, you won't actually converse in English. In fact, you will converse in English if you want to make any emails.

Right? Nobody will talk to you. So we never actually spoke English, and our limited knowledge was or exposure was, if you remember, in early nineties, HBO and Star Movies came to India. Yeah. So we had 8 channels on our TV, and all of those 8, 1 was Star Movies.

And they played, I think, one movie a day, and there were no subtitles, right, then. Right. So that was our sort of exposure to the English word. So we thought this is a newspaper which comes to our home pretty much every day, almost free. It doesn't cost much.

Yeah. And it helps you to test our vocabularies. So that's where Crosswords became a medium to solve one problem, which was to improve our vocabulary. Mhmm. An eventual game aim was to improve our GMAT score or GRE score or whatever.

Right. But I think it was the ecosystem of VJTI. I mean, we used to joke that if you dig in VJTI anywhere, you will find a balance for this. It was so prevalent. Yeah.

People used to carry it everywhere. So, you know, those flashcards and all that. Yeah. And so, I mean, definitely a vehicle for academic success and, of course, you know, taking an exam. And yet, was there something in you inherently that was, you know, kind of there were already the ingredients of puzzle solving.

And, again, the patience that's required not only to solve but eventually now create. I think, again, if I think about it, the reason why it picked my interest in Crosswords were two things. One was that I had started studied Sanskrit in my grade 8 to grade 10. Sanskrit is a very cryptic or a very coded language as pretty much any language is, but the way my teacher taught me was beautiful. And, I still remember those Subhasitas, which were very, very cryptic.

In two lines, they will give you a such a beautiful summary. Sure. So that was one reason was to see a language where a lot is hidden. Right. And you have to discover.

So some kind of a treasure hunt. Yeah. And the second reason was symmetry or a rhythm. In crosswords, if you see in any American crossword grid, it is symmetric. So if you turn the grid upside down or left to right, it looks exactly the same.

So it's symmetric. And so is Sanskrit language. It's very, very rhythmic. Yeah. So for example, if you study Sanskrit, if you look at, you know, the tables which go into grammar, devo, deva, deva, It's a table of 8 by 8.

It's very, very rhythmic, and it's a proper mathematical logic to it. Yeah. So those two things that there is a language which you can discover, and second that there is a rhythm, there is a symmetry picked my interest. Because if you master the rhythm, you master the language. I I didn't actually expect that Sanskrit and crosswords would somehow intertwine here like this, but that's beautiful and it's very elegant.

And I imagine that, in fact, there certainly is a, clearly a science and a logic and a mathematics, mathematical calculus, to this and as well as being a style and an art to solving and even constructing a a crossword puzzle. Are are those two blends of the science and the rhythm, let's say, of Sanskrit and even the design of a crossword puzzle, as well as the art and the style, while they might serve as your as your signatures when you're designing and constructing a puzzle, you also have to keep an empathetic eye on your puzzle solver. Yes. So so as a as a puzzle constructor, if you think about the art, the science, the math, the logic Yeah. And now you're a puzzle solver, How have you been able to achieve that balance, particularly when it comes to creating puzzles?

So, again, it was a natural progression given that before becoming a constructor, I was a solver for almost, like, 12, 15 years. Yeah. So I had been in those shoes for a pretty long time. Right. So I knew how that side works.

So when I came on the other side, it was very easy for me to imagine what should happen so that the moment appears. As a constructor, I joke with myself that if I make a beautiful puzzle, but if my crossword solver is not able to solve it Yeah. It's a failure. To put the other way around very subtly, when my solver wins or let me rephrase it. I'll be more than happy to lose if my solver wins.

If I win, that means the puzzle is not solved. I don't see it as victory. So I have to lose. I have to be on the loser side. The puzzle has to be solved.

Yeah. So then the pressure is on me to be a loser. By the way, which is a very, very different construct in investment banking, I would say. Oh god. You hit the nail.

Yeah. Investment banking is polar opposite. You know, you are like a dog eat dog world multiplied by 100 where Correct. I will kill you, but I'll make sure I win. Well and, I mean, you know, this notion that the solver really has to has to win.

And, of course, in a way, you're serving as a guide, as a docent, as a, someone who's really helping someone navigate through a puzzle by giving them clues, by giving them different hints. And yet Yeah. You also know as a puzzle master that there are varying degrees of skill in being able to do this. So as someone who has been a puzzle solver all you know, from a good majority of your life and and now also have been been a master puzzle constructor, how do you get unstuck when you're actually either solving or constructing a puzzle? Have you found any secrets to mastering that part of, you know, how do you get beyond sort of these common hurdles that people that everyone goes through sometimes in in a crossword puzzle?

Yeah. So while solving, there's a very beautiful experience I have had and I have lived it many, many times, and I am I want to relate that, is that when you solve a puzzle, let's say you solve it, you know, 50, 60, 70, 40%, whatever, midway, and you are stuck. Try this next time. Leave that puzzle and just digress somewhere else. Okay?

Yeah. It's like you leave that puzzle cooking in your brain. Okay? Then you come back after a few hours or some time, and you will see that somehow the answer pops out. I have lived that so many times, and I am amazed than how the mind works.

Right. So that's one I'll not say trick, but that's an experience. It may not happen to everyone every time on the first go. Right. But, you know, in our regular balance, we say, you know, sleep over it.

Right? It's something similar. Then, obviously, I was very, very disciplined, as a solver, very, very disciplined. So if I solve a puzzle today and if I don't know the answer, the solution comes the next day. I will go through every clue which I got, which I did not get, and I'll make notes.

Interesting. I was, like, mad about it. Mad. I still have those notes and those diaries. So discipline is critical in mastering, crosswords.

So it needs to be iterative. You need this you need to learn from each puzzle. Yeah. You need to learn from each puzzle, and you need to make sure you retain that learning. Because Yeah.

I'll tell you a clue today. You will read the answer, and you will feel that you got it. But if I'll ask the same clue after 6 months, you may not remember it. Yeah. Yeah.

Right? But if you write it and if you write it every time it comes, the 10th, 11th time, you will get it. Yeah. So as you can see, it's a lot of hard work, a lot of discipline. As a constructor, if I get stuck, I have a lot more, flexibility because if suppose I'm making a puzzle, it doesn't work, I can scrap it without anybody coming to know about it.

Right. Right. So you don't know that, you know, the puzzle is just coming to you as my first draft or the 100 draft or the 15th draft. Yeah. So life is lot more easier there.

But, again, 1 or 2, lessons. One is that you cannot fall in love with the idea. For example, I made a New York Times crossword to celebrate Indian Independence Day last year, and the theme was Taj Mahal. So I actually made the shape of the Taj Mahal in the puzzle. Yeah.

Now while making that puzzle, I wanted some more nuances of the Taj Mahal to be in the grid. Now I tried it, but it was not working out. So then I had to kill it. So that, I think, is very difficult as a constructor because you feel that you are making a literal Taj Mahal, which is, you know, you know, the wonder of the world. And to get rid of it, is if you can master that, you actually grow faster.

But it's very tough because you are in love with that idea. You think this is, you know, deep thing to happen, and nobody has tried this before. Right. But I think master constructors master that, that they can kill the idea. So no one is really seduced by any one thing.

Yeah. Because the resource is unlimited of ideas. It's unlimited. Yeah. There's no limit.

But if you think that this is the best idea, then it becomes that much more difficult to leave it. Yeah. Because the next best idea is just waiting for you. That's right. That's right.

Well and and and, again, you said that, like, nobody who's solving the puzzle that you've created really knows whether this was your first draft, your 100 draft, or or, you know, the idea that actually came after 6 tries. Yes. That kind of thing. Correct. Correct. In fact, what I'd an average New York Times puzzle for me will take, like, 6 months to make, at least.

People will solve it in less than a minute. Right. Right. And people will be, like, it was buck it was crap. Yeah.

After 6 months, but they don't care. Yeah. And, you know, in that way, the crossword puzzles are, again, something of an art even to solve, and it's a passion. It's a hobby. But for those who are perhaps beginners, right, What would you say are you mentioned this already, which is, you know, you sleep on it.

You you let things marinate and ruminate a little bit. But Yeah. What strategies and methods should beginners use to get to know crossword as a as a puzzle and become more advanced? At least get beyond that sort of initial stage of, you know, almost stage fright. Right?

That, like, you're like, oh gosh. This is daunting. I'm not sure if I can tackle this, but I'm interested in it. So what how do you get over the hump, so to speak? So I'll say 3 things.

You know, point 1 is treat crosswords as a language. So just as you speak, when you start learning as a kid, you don't start saying or speaking a sentence first. You start with the basics, then you learn a word, then you learn the grammar, and then a sentence is formed. So similarly in crosswords, your first, let's say, couple of weeks will be only looking at the clues, looking at the answers. Right.

Don't even try to solve it. Just look at the clues. Just look at the answers every day or whatever frequency you say, and just start building that how this x is equal to y, x is equal to y. Because every crossword is a reflection of somebody's mindset. Like, my crosswords is a reflection of my mindset.

The way I clue, the way I tell you, the clue is different from how I will clue it. Right. So you need to get the hang of how the constructor thinks. So that's step 1. Yeah.

Step 2, as I mentioned, you need to be lot more patient. So the basic unit of frequency in crosswords is decades. It's not days. It's not weeks. It's decades.

Yeah. Because that's how it is. And as I compared it with the language, if you learn a language, you will not forget it before a decade. Even if you don't use it, you will not forget it. It stays.

But it takes time to pick it up. So don't expect that you will become, you know, master of it quickly, so need to have patience. And 3rd, you know, the way Crosswords at least my Crosswords test you is they keep you hungry for looking at multiple ways of looking at the same problem. Yeah. So, for example, a word will have so many different meanings that you need to be curious to know how many more meanings there are to this word.

Like, just yesterday, I was chatting in my community. We were discussing a word stuff. Okay? Yeah. And I had the same word as the clue for 2 different answers.

So the clue was stuff. The answer was clog, 4 letter word. Right. And the clue was against stuff, and the answer was sate, s a t e, as an appetite. Yep.

So we're just discussing. And the next day, that means today, I had another clue, which was good stuff, which is well done. The same word has so many different meanings, and I'm sure stuff has at least 50 more meanings, which are Right. Waiting to be discovered. So that mindset will keep you going.

I love that. And as a constructor, my job is to show you those many colors. Yeah. It's like, you know, the example I give, you know, when we were kids, everybody had that one crayon box. It will have standard 12 colors.

Right? One red, one blue, one green. But if I give you the same crayon box, which will have 7 different shades of green Right. 8 different shades of red Yeah. It opens up your mind.

I I love that. I love the idea of, you know, so many shades of a color and this rhythm and patience and and Yeah. You know that crosswords are a language. So all of those things, I think, cultivate a nice, I think, shape to, hopefully, crosswords being the kind of puzzle that someone can enjoy for for decades, as you say. Speaking of language, do you do crosswords in Marathi and Sanskrit as well?

No. Not really. I have neither solved them. Construction is a lot more difficult because then, you know, you need a software which handles Yeah. Devnagri script.

Sure. But as of now, no. Not really. Maybe AI will help me to get there, and it'll be brilliant to see that confluence coming together. Right.

Right. But it is possible. And I'll yeah. On that same note, right, I mean, there's so many different shades to our identities and who we are. Well, you were the first Indian based crossword constructor for the LA Times and the New York Times. Yep. And you have a, obviously, you know, some great work that's out there in multiple publications and, of course, your book on mini crosswords. That that's actually and by the way, I love that book that provides a soft sort of intro to Bollywood and cricket and some good nostalgia things as well. Why is being an Indian crossword constructor so important to you and particularly, therefore, valuable to the kind of puzzle community?

One simple fact. India has the largest speaking English speaking population on the planet. Right. We are I will not say supposed to, but we are entitled to entertain ourselves in that language. And we don't have our own crossword.

How? Why? Not acceptable. 95% of crosswords will get published in Indian newspapers today are imported from either US or UK, which have their own local flavor to it, rightfully so. But why is like, the reason I became a constructor is because I grew up solving an American crosswords sitting in Mumbai with no Internet and no Bollywood, no Star Movies or HBO.

I did not know what's a coyote. I did not know what's a turnpike, and I did not know what's a BLT. Yeah. But I was made to solve it, and even today, it is done. So that's why I said, okay.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, you know, you need to solve the problem. You know, be the change you want to see. Mhmm. So I wanna see this change. So I'm trying to make my own Indian meaning crossword so that people who are who love the language can explore a crossword which will give them their own flavor.

Well, that's first off fantastic because there is a great pride in what you do, and it comes across in your work. And I'm so grateful that there are many who are out there who are getting to enjoy this and really discover and renew their passion for for Crosswords, with you every day. Absolutely. I have a very vibrant community on WhatsApp as well as on my website. There are people from 10, 12 countries who solve my minis every day, and these are all Indian minis.

So I'm glad that that problem is getting solved. Of course. And and and, again, hopefully, it means more and more fans and puzzle solvers are appreciating your work all the time. Mangesh, what a treat to have a brief conversation with you, and, we wish you all the best. Thank you.

Thanks a lot, Abhay, for having me. Thanks, Mangesh. And please learn more about his work at MangeshGhogre.com. Again, if you have a chance and have been enjoying these, please take a moment to offer a kind rating or review wherever you might be listening or watching. And remember that if you're in the US, get out there and register to vote, and please go to vote.org.

Till next time. I'm Abhay Dandekar.