#439 Early Morning and Sudoku

 Early Morning and Sudoku

Hi Readers,

Hope you’re well! Sending you all a lot of good wishes for this brand-new year.

May all your dreams come true, and you achieve everything that you desire.

From the heading of this post, you might be wondering about the association of early morning with Sudoku. Yes, these two were so associated with each other during my childhood days. Today when I found Sudoku unexpectedly in the newspaper, I couldn’t control myself but to solve it. This revived a lot of fond memories of mine, from my childhood days. Let me take you back to the year 2005, May-June to be precise. It’s so difficult to believe that 18 long years have passed after that. I can still, vividly recall some incidents from that time because I thoroughly enjoyed my school days.

Let’s come back to the incident now. 2005’s summer vacation was (Summer vacation would last for 1.5 months from mid of May to July) the break for class VII, to be precise. It was in class VII, We(me and my sister) got to know about the rules of Sudoku from the cousin of one of my friends. From her, I also got to know that the Sudoku could be found in the daily Newspapers. My restless mind wanted to try the rules that I had learned then. The next morning, I got up early, so early to pick the newspaper up from the outside of my door that the newspaper vendor would drop off around 6:30am. I sat with the newspaper to apply the rules of Sudoku. As the level was easy, I could solve it easily and that boosted my spirit. Till then it was always my father who picked up the newspaper from the door and read it religiously every day. After he was done with reading, I would pick the newspaper only to browse through the page which contained the channel-wise program list of that day.

That day, on seeing me indulged in the newspaper, my father enquired what I was doing with the newspaper. I showed him Sudoku and explained the rules. Little did, I know then, that, my act of revealing the rules to my father would reduce my chance of solving it. The next day, when I got hold of the newspaper, the blank blocks of the Sudoku had already been filled. Later, my sister got added to this race of grabbing the newspaper and solving Sudoku before both of us. Surprisingly, the fire of solving Sudoku was so intense that it motivated us to wake up early even during summer vacation when my other friends would get relaxation in the time of their wake-up.

We no longer remained the competitors of the father as school reopened after the vacation but would often compete during weekends, mostly on Sundays. Slowly and steadily my father gained expertise in solving Sudoku and started solving higher levels on the ladder of difficulty. I remember, the newspaper that we were subscribing to, was The Times Of India. My father surprised us by solving Sudoku of any difficulty level within a stipulated time frame and we were really excited by his eagerness to keep learning new things at any stage of life.

Those were the days when we were not enslaved by technology. Technology had a limited impact on our lives. We thoroughly enjoyed everything in our lives, amidst lack, imperfection, and reflection. Sudoku remained an integral part of our lives. We, referring to me, my sister, and my father, embraced Sudoku from Newspapers in physical form to websites in the online form, then apps on our smartphones. The joy that we got from solving Sudoku with a pen on the newspaper was simply unparalleled and irreplaceable. I don’t think, those memories ever flashed back, to when I solved Sudoku in one of the mobile apps on my smartphone. Today, after finding Sudoku in one of the old newspapers lying on my dining table, even though I live abroad, I am instantly transported to the container, of one of my zillion beautiful memories; Quarter No-277 where I spent glorious years of my childhood, learning, dreaming, and aspiring for a bright future.

Solved it :) It was an easy one

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Swati Sarangi

09.01.2023