AHHHH!
Nobody Escapes Daksha
Saturday,
17 October 2026
0:00
Stuck on a word?
Play hunch!
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Across
1.
Shape on the cover of Pink Floyd's 'The Dark Side of the Moon' (5)
5.
Sports venue where, for once, nobody stays in the stands (5)
9.
'___ loves me, ___ loves me not' (daisy-petal game) (2)
10.
What you grit when your feet start to protest (5)
12.
'Up you get, ___ else!' (2)
13.
A, U and M, blended into one holy sound (2)
14.
Prayer in which a lit lamp is circled before the goddess (5)
15.
'Shall ___?', an invitation to the floor (2)
16.
Like your ears at 2 a.m., after four hours beside the drummer (7)
18.
Smells, as a New Jersey sign would spell them (5)
20.
Carry ___ to Newcastle, or teach a Gujarati grandmother her steps (5)
22.
Letter from Athens that sounds brand new (2)
23.
Put it before 'union' to get what every Navratri is for a scattered family (2)
24.
Salsa, tango or bhangra (5)
27.
Revolve about, as moths do a flame (5)
30.
Painted sticks, and the partner-swapping whirl you clack them in (7)
32.
Cup ___ masala chai, pressed into your hand at the 1 a.m. break (2)
34.
Flair; a chaniya choli, the swirling skirt-and-blouse outfit, has it in spades (5)
35.
___-fi, as the uncles still call the speakers blasting Falguni Pathak (2)
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Low, on a diet label the jalebi stall will never print (2)
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Family ___ with branches in Ahmedabad, Leicester and New Jersey (4)
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Word before 'Majesty', for Elizabeth II (3)
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Not ___: keeping pace with a seventy-something who never sits (4)
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Speech at a lazy tempo, every vowel stretched (5)
Down
1.
One of hundreds the dads snap from the sidelines, phones held high (5)
2.
'Shiny Happy People' band (3)
3.
Step that creaks loudest when you tiptoe home at dawn (5)
4.
'Can I join in?' 'By all ___!' (5)
5.
Where the Navratri finery waits out the rest of the year (5)
6.
One-horned star of Assam's Kaziranga (5)
7.
'Not after this song. ___!' (3)
8.
Zones; grey ones are neither black nor white (5)
11.
Saharan sand sea, from the Arabic 'irq' (3)
16.
Tune like 'Frère Jacques', its voices chasing each other in a circle (5)
17.
Gujarat's great circle around a lamp; its name comes from the Sanskrit for 'womb' (5)
19.
Molecule that makes you, you (3)
21.
Necklace of flowers that says aloha (3)
24.
Barrel drum that takes over after midnight; starts like 'Dhaka', rhymes with 'goal' (4)
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Throws, as dice or a fishing line (5)
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Dish in a cook-off, say (5)
27.
Like a hinge that's stopped squeaking (5)
28.
___grass, the stuff of many a golf fairway (3)
29.
Spin that turns a mirror-work skirt into a glittering disc (5)
31.
What colours a bandhani dupatta everywhere but its thousands of tied dots (3)
33.
'Friend or ___?', asked of a stranger at the gate (3)
35.
Carve out, as a path through a packed gym (3)
38.
Gujarati 'yes', coaxed at last out of a wallflower (2)