Jigsaw!

Colgate toothpaste people once offered jigsaw puzzles as free gifts to their bulk buyers. My grandpa was a buyer and he got one too. It was made MINE by me unconditionally! That was my first jigsaw. The map of India, split into a hundred pieces. That was hard. Just too hard. Me and my little cousin, (I was little too, back then) sat down for hours to solve it. And if my memory doesn’t fail me, she lost interest half way and I took my precious jigsaw home and sat with it till I finally solved it. It was step by step. First time, I matched the colours and filled the voids. Then started linking letters and connected broken words. With the big picture in my mind, I associated the bends and curves with the geography and location of the states. Everytime I solved the puzzle, I was devising a new way to solve that brain teaser. Beginning from the middle, and growing in all directions. Finishing the border rectangle and shrinking inwards. Ways were many to reach the big picture. Never satisfied with the techniques, I gathered the pieces and timed my setting up of the puzzle. I was fast enough for me to be proud of myself. Every other jigsaw that my little sis was gifted, was less than a minutes business for me. After all, they were 6 – 10 piece puzzles meant for kids!

Jigsaws vanished. Sudoku and Minesweeper are better mind games, topped by jumbled words. With their varying difficulty levels, time is never enough to finish them. There’s almost no time for thinking about jigsaw, that I’ve already mastered with glory. Today was an eye opener. The puzzle below. Hardly a twenty four piece jigsaw and I couldn’t solve it in three big minutes. I can explain. I was not thinking proper. I was absent minded. I was not taking it serious. Ah cut the crap. I couldn’t solve that god damn puzzle. The one that I thought I was an ace at! Forget it. It’s just the disintegration of molecules from the the brain. 😀