New York Times, Wednesday, October 2, 2019

I am a crossword constructor from India. Professionally, I am an investment banker. My wife Rupali Ghogre and I stay on the outskirts of Mumbai with our daughter Eva (named after my favorite crossword answer) and son Advait. I have been flirting with American crosswords since 1997.

This is easily one of the biggest moments of my life. As an Indian, I feel lucky to get this opportunity to celebrate a great global icon like Mahatma Gandhi. And what better occasion than his 150th birth anniversary! While I have had bylines in NYT before, this crossword is also special in another way — it's my debut solo crossword for the New York Times. This is the day I have waited for all my life!

This puzzle is an outcome of the very encouraging response I received for the Fourth of July puzzle with Brendan Emmett Quigley in NYT in 2017. Having celebrated American Independence Day, I wanted to celebrate India. How cool will that be — a puzzle made in India, by an Indian, on an Indian personality who has such a wide global influence across generations. I immediately wrote to Will Shortz that I had a puzzle idea to celebrate a momentous occasion. Will liked the idea and the thought of celebrating this noteworthy occasion.

I aspire to bring more meaning to my puzzle endeavor. This puzzle is a step to drive home that point — just like the three letters GHI snug closely in a single box. It epitomizes that we can also make space for more people in our lives if we open our minds and hearts. There is space for other ideas. And that only makes the crosswords of our life more meaningful.

This puzzle and the historic occasion have special meaning for me. In today's world, marked with conflicts and violence, every moment devoted to spreading Gandhi's message of peace and non-violence is a small step to make this world a peaceful place.

Before you email me, complaining that this puzzle makes no sense, let me explain why GHI are in a single square. Look at the revealer, GANDHI.

Get it, G AND HI?

As in G & HI = GHI crammed in?

Well, okay, I don't get the rationale for rebusizing them into one square either, but sometimes you just gotta have a little faith.

I loved the Indian flair of the puzzle, not just playing on GANDHI but adding entries like DELHI and BRAHMA. Even ROTI, which I'd usually avoid since it's a toughie, is perfect for today.

I even wondered if BINDS should have been BINDI, with TSAR becoming TIER (and MATA to META). Why not go whole hog? Oh wait, lots of Indians are vegetarian. Go whole … cauliflower?

That should be a thing.

Mangesh asked me to help him with the grid (his first draft was more like a rough, rough idea of a draft), but he decided to go it alone when he realized that would mean sharing a byline. He made the right decision, producing a fine grid on his own. It's not audacious — most rebus puzzles have more (often far more) rebus squares than this — but it's a fair balance between theme density and clean gridwork.

GHI is also a tough sequence of letters to work with; not that many ways of hiding it. In some of Mangesh's early correspondence, he had stretched for things like HUG HIM, EGFHIJ, and LONG HIDDEN. I thought he was kidding at first! I do think there's more than enough possible material for a fourth rebus square, which would have felt much meatier — er, cauliflowerier? — but construction is all about trade-offs.

Overall, a solid nod to a great man. Much more enjoyable than the usual tribute puzzle.