Sudoku ! yatte miyou..

Sachin Pilot does it and so do my dad n bro..
The current range in the dailys.. Sudoku.
I tried to distance myself from it for quite sometime.

Especially when ppl around me were really hooked to it.. cause some how I knew that though t'was a daily ritual for them, as soon as I wud try to pry .. they all wud turn into fierce competitors ..

" which level did u try.. EASY? bah!"
" Why are u using a pencil AND an eraser? he he ..*smirk* *snigger* .."
" 3 hrs!!!???.. wot r u doing? ... plzzzz its a CAKE! ..."
" FYI.. page 3 has the solution.."

Some considered giving me a hand.
A paper, a pen and loads of " let-me-show-you-how-to-crack-it" !
" See, this is the thing."
I stare at the 9X9 in front of me...

" This , this and this shud never have the same digits...."
I nod and stare at the vertical , horizontal , diagonal lines slashed in the 9X9

"...and this and this shud have all the digits atleast once. "
Again.. slash slash slash.. I still stare at the 9X9 till the earlier slashes float in a diffrent plain than the newly drawn ones..
[ like those illusions that we recieve thru mails, " if u stare at it long enuff, u can see the dots moving, circles rotating, lines floating, grid changing color .. and if you stare long enuff, your boss can see you all dazed and glazy eyed in front of the screen! "]

"..AND, each of these shud have all the digits .. none shud be repeated.."
I lose my glazy stare which I was concentrating hard to manitain..

" .. and ultimately the BIG picture shud be same as these individual ones.."
I look at the BIG picture in front of me..
slash slash and some more slash, square, dot dot , Big dot , another slash , rrrrip..!!!!
The enthu volunteer has stabbed the paper triumphantly..

"..See.. this is soo damn easy! God .. Sudoku is addictive!.."
I grin at the volunteer to acknowledge the efforts!

Though I didn't get it that time.. it got me finally.
The best thing abt it is you need not calculate and u need not be a math geek or anything .. Sudoku is so math-dud-friendly.
Its fine even if you can't count from 1 to 9 [ see.. not even 1 to 10! ].
In fact the numbers in sudoku ain't treated as numbers at all.. u might as well take 9 different symbols and play it!
Finally a number game without maths! :-D [ so much for an Engg graduate from COEP! ]

I don't think its addictive, because once you get it, its the same all the time.
So never over-do it.
After lazy sundays' monsterous meals, curtains drawn, amidst the content lull , when the rest of the newspaper is devoured..
....a Sudoku each for me n my husband!
That makes a real cozy Sunday afternoon!

Signing off for now,
Snehal