Mr. Raju studied in Mumbai and landed a job in an insurance company that took him to Nairobi, Kenya, in the Seventies. He has been residing there ever since.

His spare moments are spent solving crosswords. He speaks to Amutha Kannan about the importance of crossword puzzles and the poor status it enjoys, not only in India, but also the world over.

“There is a wrong notion that solving puzzles are difficult. You should choose a puzzle that can be solved. Start off at a simple level and move on. If something cannot be solved, don’t fret. It should be kept aside and revisited after sometime or some days. You can also learn by comparing the unfinished one with the finished one,” Mr. Raju observes.

Since he himself was a beginner only in his twenties, he believes that when one starts early in childhood, involvement and interest will be deeper.

Now, after his voluntary retirement, he is planning to take up “preaching the word to the youth.”

Mr. Raju is not only a keen solver, but also a collector. He has huge cartons of crossword puzzles in his house.

Most of them are those solved by him, some are yet to be solved. His feat of owing the maximum collection of crosswords has been acknowledged by the Limca Book of Records in 1992. Since then he has held this record.

He has not been able to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, since the Guinness does not have such a category to recognise the achievement of Mr. Raju.

Even though he is happy that he has cracked many a crossword puzzle, he is not a content person because of the poor response it evokes among people.

“I want to make it popular. It involves the use of brain cells to the extent you need to use for a game of chess. But, it is not considered an accepted hobby or interest to be pursued. It should be made a subject in schools to help students develop their concentration, lateral thinking and observation powers,” he recommends.

If one keeps exercising the brain, the cells get redeveloped. “You don’t use it, you lose it. It is also said to ward off Alzheimer’s and Parkinson diseases,” he concludes.

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