[OPEN] The Weekly Whoop #3: Rama's Future
I am back, baby!
STFU (So That Folks Understand)
The Weekly Whoop #3 wasn't solved in the scheduled timeframe (between 0600 hours on October 25, 2024 to 1800 hours on October 27, 2024).
It is now an “open Hunt.”
This means that there is no deadline. All the clues are out in the open. The reward is still up for grabs.
The Hunt will end when someone sends through the complete and correct solution.
Come, challenge your mind, and whoop the feed! Hello, hello!
Welcome to The Weekly Whoop #3!
If you want to learn more about how this generally works, jump to this introduction. To know more about whoop!, visit the About page.
You can also DM me.
Alright!
This time, the key is not a verse but a prose. It’s a snapshot of a turning point in the life of an enterprising woman named Rama1.
I have not included the prose in the images and the PDF document below, being mindful of the space and the document’s length.
The prose is present inline in this post.
Here we go:
And a downloadable PDF version, should you want to share it with friends and enemies:
Here is the riddle in prose:
The Key
Rama’s mother always thought that her penchant for noticing oddities & getting hooked on them offered no future.
Once, she arranged a ‘date’ for Rama, and instead of hanging on to the guy’s words, Rama kept ogling his shirt’s print.
In her mind, she was crafting perplexing puzzles about the print when she could have played with her hair, tucking it behind her ear to feign interest.
Her mother had admonished her, “How could you let such a nice boy go?”
But she couldn’t help it. The print paid peculiar attention to the golden ratio. She knew the slightly off-kilter patterns were a deliberate choice. Plus, they were good fodder for visual-spatial enigmas. Most people wouldn’t notice. Rama wasn’t ‘most people.’
Once, a friend asked about MyPickup, the daily commute service Rama used. She could have told her how the driver was always punctual and soft-spoken, how every ride was safe, clean, and green, or how the co-passenger matched her ride-share preferences.
But no!
All she talked about was the taxicab’s number and how it reminded her of an animation. She even gave her friend a riddle it had inspired.
Rama wasn’t concerned about who she rode with or how the ride felt. Her time in the auto was much-needed ‘me time.’
She spent it outdoing TV detectives in the interactive recordings on Calabash, finding ways to make the crosswords she had solved more challenging or taking cues from the road to make up riddles no one would solve.
It irked her mother that she ignored the practical and the obvious to favor the odd but trivial.
“Who wants that?” Her mother would ask. For a long time, Rama had no answers.
Then, one fine Bengaluru day, she had.
She was eating her favorite buttery Uttapam, the rice-lentil pancake, at the cafe when a Janitor pushed a cleaning cart aside to approach her.
He wasn’t the regular guy.
She would have noticed if the regular guy was sans a left thumb or his right meat hook wasn’t meaty.
Although this man had expertly concealed these details, Rama wasn’t one to miss them. Instead, she felt that he was counting on that.
“Wanted: a lady with a knack for the unusual and the puzzling. Creative, witty, and a touch obsessive. Should be bored with her day job. Age, no bar. Awkwardness, no bar. Willing to embark on adventures of the mind and mystery.”
Rama’s ears burned.
“Salary — negotiable, job security — assured, perks — intellectual satisfaction and boundless curiosity. Prospects: bright with opportunity for fame and constant mental stimulation. Respond with details if interested.”
The Janitor’s delivery was like that of a drunk robot. He grinned, and the gleam in his eyes matched the glint of his metallic right hand.
He whisked out of view just as he had whisked in. Besides the mystified mask that was Rama’s face, the only trace he left was a device on her table.
And that trace buzzed.
“Howdy, Riddler?”
There was a moment’s pause. Then...
“Welcome to The Hunt.”
The Quest
Use the key to complete the crossword below by answering the prompts Across and Down and providing the logic behind your answers.
DM me for clarifications, brainstorming, checking/sending solutions, and idle chitchat.
The Playbook
The rules of the quest:
Complete the quest by completing the crossword and providing the logic2 behind the answers.
Partial solutions are a no-no for submission, but you can discuss them with me during the quest.
Whoever completes the quest first wins3
Annual subscribers are eligible for a $200 cash prize.
Monthly subscribers are eligible for a $100 cash prize.
Free subscribers are eligible for a $50 cash prize4
Ask questions, seek clarifications, confirm answers, brainstorm, and send the solutions (and logic) via DM (preferred method):
Or via email.
Thedeadlineis 1800 hours Pacific Time on Sunday,October 27, 2024.
The Weekly Whoop #3 is now an “open Hunt.”
This means that there is no deadline now. The clues are all out in the open, and the reward is still up for grabs.
The Hunt will end whenever someone sends through the complete and correct solution.
The Clues
The clues are helpful hints released with a time delay. They will be available to everyone (subscriber or not) for this quest.
Clue #1
Patience is a virtue! This cluewill became out on October 25, 2024 at 1800 hours PT.
Clue #2
Patience is a virtue! This cluewill became out on October 26, 2024 at06000606 hours PT.
Clue #3
Patience is a virtue! This cluewill became out on October 26, 2024 at18001807 hours PT.
The tools to complete the quest
In addition to putting that beautiful mind of yours to work, you can:
work with friends and family
collaborate with colleagues and strangers
brainstorm with me5
use the internet,
walk into the local library (remember that old thing),
use AI and any other resources
Parting Shot
This is it, folks! I am thrilled to bring this third quest from ‘whoop!’. I hope you will enjoy completing it as much as I enjoyed devising it.
Please remember, the quest ends when someone completes it (answers to ALL prompts of the crossword AND the logic behind them) OR if the time runs out (1800 hours PT on Sunday, October 27, 2024).
Let’s get solving!
This snapshot is part of a series of posts I have written for whoop! ’s proposed ARG. You can read the other posts at your leisure. They aren’t ‘required reading’ for this quest.
Logic is more than superficial connections like synonyms, antonyms, anagrams, word lengths, et cetera. E.g., if the answer to a particular prompt is a synonym of the prompt, your logic should explain why that specific synonym is the answer in the context of the riddle.
Or, e.g., say you see GLEAM emerge as the answer to 2 Down because of the letters from answers to the other prompts. You still have to explain how GLEAM is connected to the riddle.
This means there is only one reward up for grabs and it varies with your subscription plan.
You do have to subscribe for free using a valid email address to be eligible.
DM me on Substack (waveman). That’s the preferred route. You will have to opt for a free subscription for this.
You can also find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit, Grapevine, and X at the handle whoopthefeed. This facility is available for a limited time only. I will notify the community once we move entirely to Substack DMs.
[This benefit is available to subscribers only] You can access the community chat to work with other community members. Just (a) be respectful, (b) please don’t disclose the answers on the chat (use DMs if you must), and (c) remember that there’s only one reward per quest, and it will go out to the subscriber who communicates it first via DM or email.