Monday, September 15, 2014

Inaugral function IXL-2014 - 14 Sep 2014




I had the honour of being invited to attend the Inaugural/Launch event of IXL-2014 at the Emperor Hall of the National Sports club of India at Worli, Mumbai. 



 The dais before it was populated

Chief guest at the event was Mr UK Sinha, Chairman, SEBI. The function started with a mini 7 x 7 crossword for the invitees to the event and it was heartening to see the participation and response from them, even though some of them had a field day making guesses for a couple of the two-letter lights.
 The trophy awaiting the IXL-2014 champion


Shachii Manik one of the top ten at last years IXL (due to family commitments she could not participate in the final) was also present.

At the end of the event the special guests and those who correctly solved the 7 x 7 were presented with IXL T-shirts. 

I was surprised when a lady walked up to me immediately after the launch and asked me if I recognised her, when I gave her a blank look, she introduced herself as Nitaa Jaggi!!  Obviously the photo of hers which is there on the interview at Shuchi's site must have been taken much earlier as I could not put two and two together. 

Nita Jaggi's husband, Nitaa Jaggi, Self, Shachii Manik

Another surprise meeting was with Mangesh Sakharam Ghogre my acquaintance from the blog on the LA Times Crossword Corner blog, the blog which inspired me to set up THCC and this blog. He sets crosswords occasionally for the LA Times. Unfortunately I could not take a photograph with him.

Shall add the link to the IXL site after they add more photographs there.

On the whole had a hectic and enjoyable one day outing to Mumbai, kind courtesy Mr Vivek Singh, IXL and Extra-C 

News articles about the launch available at the undermentioned links

5 comments:

  1. Nice. Good luck if you are also contesting.

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  2. Good shots, Col ! Did you squirm after seeing NJ? She looks to be a gentle soul, not worthy of all the barbs in the THCC !! She can always claim that she had outwitted all the solvers put together? Was she referring to her stint at the THC and the comments in THCC ? I'm not amazed to see the fairer sex in the crossword world as they have that extra intuitive faculty to compile and solve !! More women power to this field !!

    Any video of the events?

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  3. Nice snaps.Participating for the 1st time.Good luck to all

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  4. It was an honour to finally meet you, Colonel. Hope to interact more henceforth. Thank you of this post, and hope to see the videos soon. I'm eager to see how my extempore was delivered! Good luck to all those participating in the IXL 2014!
    Best regards,
    Shachii
    (note the double i at the end! - it is a puzzling coincidence that NJ spells her name with a double a at the end. But I would like to believe that the similarity ends there!)

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