Greetings, my fellow countrymen and women! This is your favourite uncle, Anand Rangarajan and I am back in Delhi after my disastrous trip to Gujarat with Mr Rajdeep Sardesai. I am happy to inform you that I have since changed my bathing soap from Hamam to Lux so as to avoid bringing to mind those unpleasant Ahmedabad memories. By the grace of Lord Ayappa I shall be up and running very shortly – your blessings will be greatly appreciated also.

This week, dear readers, I have something other than a doodle to upload. Strange are the ways of the almighty that he seems to have chosen only me for all these uploads, but when God gives a task, man must carry it out. How I got my hands on what I’m going to upload today is by itself a very interesting story that I shall now narrate. You see, on my flight back from Ahmedabad, by some amazing stroke of luck, I got seated next to Ms Nidhi Razdan. You of course know Ms Razdan – she gets it Left, Right and Centre every night on her show. Notwithstanding, she is always smiling and cheerful. How in lord’s name? Rumour has it that she goes back home and spends an hour meditating in front of her LG 72 inch HD TV. This gives her the larger picture that most of her colleagues don’t get. Hence her cheerfulness, problem solved.

Anyway, on the flight, she was anything but cheerful. In fact, she was angry and vexed and very agitated. I tried to calm her down by offering her my lime juice and peanut packet but she declined. Her hands were trembling and she was weaving and spinning a pencil through her fingers like how students do at an exam when they have no clue vide apropos the answer. All of a sudden, she whipped out her mobile and in contravention of in-flight manual, started talking to someone. I knew who this someone was a moment later when she said: “Damn it, Barkha – 4 across, I said, 4 across! And I can’t get 3 down either – shit! Why do those old farts at Bekhabar have to make it so damn tough?!”

I looked at her and she at me. The result of this short-lived exchange was that she now started talking with Ms Dutt in whispers. “Sorry, sorry, Daisy, didn’t mean to scold you; calm down, listen to my narrative first…What? Even you can’t get 10 across? I knew it! And what about 6 down? No? Oh, lord, what am I to do?”

Now, dear readers, being in a ministry I’ve been privy to many bizarre conversations believe you me, but this was something totally new. What were these dear damsels in distress discussing? 4 across, 6 down, 10 across…were they planning some expedition where they have to get down a cliff face and swim across a stream before Mr Goswami beat them to the summit?

I was so immersed in these thoughts when, suddenly, our plane hit an air-pocket. Next thing you know Ms Razdan threw her hands up in the air, as she so expertly does when accosted with a smart and intelligent rejoinder by a panellist. Her peanuts went flying, her lime juice was on her silk kurta – that green flowery one that she wears every night on TV, and her pencil nearly blinded the aisle-seat sardarji. Oh, it was some sight.

The bottom-line of all this was that when our plane emerged from this rascal of an air-pocket, I noticed that something had landed in my lap and my veshti was cradling it. It was a book, a small and thin book but it was very roughly made – looked like self-published or even cyclostyled to me. The cover had this title in strange lettering and there was no author name. BEKHABAR, it screamed in bold. That’s when I realised to my amazement that the title made sense even though the book was upside-down – by Balaji’s thunder, it was an ambigram! BEKHABAR read BEKHABAR whichever way you looked at it! And I know my ambigrams from my anagrams. You see, I am really really fond of Dan Brown novels wherein the hero, a Harvard professor of Symbology, cracks one ambigram after another in his quest to discover freemasons and secret societies.

Ooh, dear readers – what I had in my lap was a book belonging to a secret society! But my lap was devoid of it the next instant as Ms Razdan whisked it away with a swipe of her right hand and gave me a dirty stare to boot. The rest of the journey I dutifully avoided her, preferring to look out of the window at the clouds passing us by.

When we landed, and before the seat-belt sign had been switched off, all 217 of us passengers were up on our feet falling over each other to gain a toe-hold in the aisle. Ms Razdan was just ahead of me but talking on her mobile. As the queue lurched ahead, she marched forward without even as much as giving me a polite smile. And when it was my turn to slither through to the aisle, to my amazement I noticed that Ms Razdan had forgotten that same book – there it lay invitingly in the magazine pocket along with a bunch of newspapers. Without thinking twice, I purloined it! And now your uncle has this secret society book in his possession – what luck through the benevolence of Lambodar!

This book, dear readers, has given me sleepless nights ever since. It turns out to be a book of puzzles and crosswords, where each page displays two crosswords under the BEKHABAR banner and logo – one for the cub reporters and the second one for senior journalists. I am now uploading the first page of this book, in the hope that it will also give you sleepless nights.

But one word of caution: lay readers and non-senior journalists shouldn’t even think of trying the senior journalist crossword – it is impossible to crack! I spent full three days and could only manage to get one correct answer: that of the senior journalist, Ms Madhu Trehan. Ho-ho, and what a cleverly disguised clue it was, too!

I’m not joking, dear readers. Don’t try this second crossword – even Howard Roark wouldn’t be able to solve it, by himself or with proxy aid. The first one is difficult enough, or at least was for me. Well, anyway, dear readers, it is time for your uncle to say bye-bye and upload the first page that, I now understand, gave Ms Razdan and Ms Dutt such consternation. Here it is:

Good luck, my friends! You can take a print-out of the crosswords, solve it, and post your answers in the comments section, that I must disclose your uncle peruses with great interest. Your jasmine-scented words of wisdom keep Rangarajan on the straight and narrow path of deliverance.

This article first appeared in newslaundry on Jun. 28, 2013.