Bengali Word Games
There's a big, beautiful and bountiful world of English Word games out there. These games, created and practiced over centuries, have arrested people's attention and time, tested native speakers' grasp of the language and attested confidence in a non-speaker. Many of these games have been transformed into games of other languages, and such transformations have been beneficial for a different kind of language proficiency. Bengali language, sadly, does not have many examples or varieties of word games when compared to the English ones. Bengali adaptations of Crosswords are very popular, and vernacular versions are very common in newspapers, magazines, periodicals etc. Apart from crosswords, a couple of adaptations of other English word games, or some indigenous ones have been published regularly, but there's a dearth of variety. The Bengali word game arena is not as rich as the English one. Few notable Bengali authors and personalities did think of unique Bengali word games, or converted the soul of some of the famous English games into Bengali, but they didn't continue with those games. Dadathakur Sarat Chandra Pandit was one such word-gamer, who created many wonderful Palindromes and Acrostics in Bengali, which are famous to this day. Sukumar Ray, a genius known for his word-play, puns and nonsense rhymes, might have created some indigenous Bengali word games, based on the English word games created by Lewis Carroll, but they are yet to be found. Other literary figures have dabbled in notable puns, word plays etc., but not many have spent time on serious word game creation. Overall, the world of Bengali word games lacks variety and volume.
Variety of games
Bengali Crosswords (শব্দছক) [1]
Without doubt, the most famous and most played of all available Bengali word games. The history of Bengali Crosswords is hard to trace, as no such organized collection exists to find out who published the first ever crossword in Bengali. However, over the last few decades, this variety of word-puzzle has captivated many Bengali minds in a way that is unparalleled. Serious solvers of this puzzle wait for daily newspapers, or periodicals to go through the hints and fill up the blank boxes as quickly as they can. A good number of well-known to not-so-known magazines and periodicals like Anandabazar Patrika, Ei Samay Sangbadpatra, Bartaman, Aajkaal, Sangbad Pratidin, Anandamela, Saptahik Bartaman, etc. have been publishing their own designs and formats of this game for many years now. There are few Bengali Crossword creators who have created thousands of such puzzles continuously for these magazines and periodicals. From stalwarts like Nirendranath Chakravarty to lesser known mavericks like Ranjan Bhaduri [2], Bibhangshu Datta, Prasanta Gupta and Subhojyoti Roy. Prasanta Gupta has a book on Bengali Crosswords to his name, while Subhojyoti Roy has created a record of more than 3000 crossword puzzles, and has got an entry into The Limca Book Of Records [3], and is eyeing an entry into The Guinness Book Of World Records. Subhojyoti has started a magazine dedicated only to Bengali crosswords and calls it ShabdabaaN (শব্দবাণ). Over the years, some books have been published which have a collection of solvable crossword puzzles, but the total number of such books might not be more than a single digit.
Bengali Puzzles (ধাঁধা)[4]
There might be slight competition for the Most Loved Game's slot between Bengali crosswords and Bengali puzzles on grounds of popularity and volume, but the very nature of these two word games should be taken into consideration before jumping to a conclusion. While crosswords are elaborate, puzzles typically are small poems of 4 to 10 lines at the max. Crosswords require extensive knowledge of not only word-meanings, but of knowledge in general about almost everything. Puzzles do require similar knowledge, but on a much lesser scale. Traditionally speaking, puzzles have been a part of Bengali folktales, fables and stories for ages, whereas crosswords are newcomers to the playground, having been there barely for the last fifty years or so. Many notable authors have penned many memorable puzzles within a story, and those puzzles have remained favorites with the readers over decades.
References
- Daily crossword on Anandabazar Patrika: https://archives.anandabazar.com/crossword.html
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