IN 1974, the year of his arrival in the United States, Kumar Balani was confident enough of his crossword construction abilities to boldly vie for a contract for six puzzle books (to create 60 original puzzles for each book) from Bantam Books. He ranked 2nd in a field of 25 competitors. Disappointed that Ed Julius --who had been creating crosswords since he was eight--got the deal, Kumar virtually forgot about puzzles for over two decades,
while "life got in the way" - graduate school, reporting and international business.

But in 1997, he made a comeback. In July of that year Hinduism Today profiled him in an article entitled "Dharma's Puzzle Pioneer". Part of that feature was a crossword puzzle in which a very large 85 percent of the entries either pertained to or were clued to as relating to Hinduism and India, which he describes today in his own words as a "near-impossible feat". That crossword that he created upon special request by Hinduism Today editors was-content specific, like those found in TV Guide, for example, or some specialty magazines. When one counts the number of words in such puzzles that pertain to a particular subject or area, they usually constitute no more than 65 percent. To reach 85 percent is extremely difficult, most cruciverbalists, or crossword constructors, will admit.

It is not only because Kumar Balani created the first crossword on Hinduism that he was called a pioneer by Hinduism Today. The editors recognized that he was the first and only Indian crossword constructor to have created puzzles relating to India and Indians beginning in late 1996, with a very large number of words relevant to India: typically about 50 words in a 15x15 (squares) puzzle, making up 65 percent of the average crossword containing 78 words in total.

In 1996, he established Puzzlemania Inc to create and distribute puzzles to Indian and Philippine periodicals. Several Indian magazines and newspapers in the United subscribed to his puzzles, most notably India Currents and India West in California and News India-Times in New York. News India-Times ran them for nearly five years from November 1996 to October 2001, when a new person got the job of editor there. There were also various Philippine newspapers, most popular among which were Filipino Reporter in New York and Hawaii Filipino Chronicle in Honolulu. "The Indian/Philippine market of some 50 journals is not a large or easy one. Many papers don't want to spend money to print puzzles. Most drop out after a year or so. It requires a lot of follow-through to get them back as clients. Currently I'm interested mainly in the largest handful of Indian and Philippine publications as customers, gearing my efforts these days more towards the mainstream media," Kumar says.

Today, he has become a pioneer once again, in another respect. Records show that while Ghulam Faruki, a psychiatrist, became the first Indian to have one crossword (out of four submitted) published in The New York Times on May 02, 1980, Kumar Balani is the first Indian and perhaps also the first Asian-American to have had a puzzle accepted by not only by The New York Times, acknowledged by puzzle makers as the toughest crossword outlet to crack, but also within a one-month period (Oct 18-Nov 17, 2001) the Los Angeles Times, the Sunday Washington Post Magazine, and Universal Press Syndicate, one of the largest distributors of cartoons, columns and puzzles to print and online media.

The New York Times crossword has been setting the standards in puzzledom for the last half century since the late Margaret Farrar was its first editor. "I had read about this guy who first submitted a puzzle in the 1950s that was rejected. Sometime in the late 1990s (he does not specify) he finally got a puzzle accepted by Will Shortz, the current Times puzzles editor. There are people who have I think, sent in over a hundred puzzles over a period of time, with not a single hit," says Kumar. Acceptance decisions can be as short as three weeks to as much as a year and a half, based on experiences of different constructors in the puzzle world, he said.

Shortly after his puzzle was accepted last August 31st, Will Shortz, the New York Times' crossword editor, informed Kumar that his puzzle will appear in the paper in "nine to eleven months" which means sometime between May and July 2002. It will be either a Tuesday or a Wednesday puzzle, for which the backlog is largest, he pointed out. "I just cannot wait. That was my 15th attempt, so I don't feel too bad, considering there are probably many who've sent in perhaps forty, sixty, eighty or more of their creations and are still trying." Although it was his 15th submission, it was only his 3rd in 2001, all of which were sent last January. He sent out 12 puzzles created between March and June of 1997 to Will Shortz, all of which were rejected. He did not try at all in the interim four years. Besides creating three puzzles in 1998 for the online medium AtTheCrossroads.com, he did not open up any other mainstream outlet until the New York Times acceptance this year.

"When laser-sharp focus meets intense desire, success is the inevitable result. That is what happened to me over the year-end holiday season in 2000, when I started creating the three puzzles I sent to Will in January. But more than that, I started taking a closer look and making written notes of the themes in Times puzzles, as I solved them daily, whereas in 1997, I would just only occasionally solve them. That discipline and concentration, that 'homework' if you may call it that, was what made the difference. I always knew in my heart and mind that I could create a puzzle for The New York Times. The desire was there for over two decades. But it is only when I decided I must do it, that it happened. Had all those three puzzles been rejected, I was ready to do my 'homework' and take a crack at it again. And again, and again, if need be."

Those who solve The New York Times crossword are aware that Monday to Thursday puzzles have specific themes in the longest entries, sometimes full-length or 15 letters long. Monday puzzles are least difficult and they become increasingly tougher to solve as the week progresses. Most Friday puzzles are themeless, and belong to a different category, so they're over the heads of, or, as Kumar characterized it, 'recondite', (adding "there's a Friday puzzle word!") to most solvers. The Saturday Times puzzle is beyond the ability of even many expert solvers. The Sunday New York Times Magazine crossword puzzle, a large (21 x 21 squares) is again a themed one, "constructed mainly by pros in the business," Kumar pointed out. "I have an approved theme from Will Shortz for a Sunday puzzle, which I will buckle down to construction once I find a good, solid block of time," Kumar said. Most puzzle editors at Sunday magazines want constructors to propose themes and get a "green light" because such crosswords entail a lot of effort and time to create.

"Having successfully tackled the toughest challenge by getting my first crossword accepted by The New York Times, I figured it would be easy to come up with lively and fresh themes to use in constructing a puzzle for another major top-notch daily, the Los Angeles Times. Accordingly, the Los Angeles Times accepted two of Kumar's puzzles (one co-authored with Nelson Hardy, a highly prolific constructor), among only three submitted. It is not known yet when those will see print, but most likely by April next year. .

To further challenge himself, Kumar decided to attempt creating a large puzzle for the Sunday Washington Post Magazine, whose crossword editor is Fred Piscop, another expert constructor like Rich Norris, whose own puzzles have appeared in numerous and varied publications and in online media. "The theme for the first puzzle that I proposed was first shown to Nancy Salomon, a well-known cruciverbalist. She was just thrilled with my theme, and so was Fred Piscop, who said 'Let's do it!' and we got working on it immediately. Having gained some knowledge of good clueing techniques, I was ready to go solo. When I showed the theme for the second puzzle to Nancy, she liked it so much, she called me 'a theming superstar' and I was tickled pink. Both puzzles will appear in mid-2002, Fred Piscop informed Kumar.

The first of Kumar's puzzles created for the mainstream media however appeared on December 8, 9 and 16. These three crosswords -two of which the Dec 9th and 16th ones -- are entertainment-related, were created for Universal Press Syndicate, one of the largest distributors of comics and columns, besides puzzles. Its clients, numbering thousands include some of the largest dailies in the country (that do not have an in-house crossword editor) and purely online outlets, besides the online versions of the subscriber-publications.

Puzzle construction is an avocation to Kumar. It's something I really love to do," he says. He created his early puzzles when he was in his early teens, when they appeared in The Sebastianian, a monthly publication of San Sebastian College in Manila, where he started in sixth grade and completed his high school education. He obtained his AB Journalism degree from the Institute of Mass Communication at the University of the Philippines, one of the best institutions for higher education in Asia. Kumar then went on to study international relations at New York University, obtaining his MA in that field from there in 1977. He was United Nations and New York correspondent for the Philippines Daily Express from 1976 to 1980.

Kumar did not continue in journalism after he got married in 1981. He instead joined his brother and two cousins based in Spain in establishing Balani International Inc., an export firm, in New York City in 1981. After a decade as a partner in that firm, Kumar opened up his own export business. He has run that business since 1991, but "I am now looking to re-enter journalism and make my mark in that field." He says that "as the recession has caused many newspapers to lose advertising revenue and thereby lay off thousands of employees, newspapers are not hiring, at least not yet. But I am looking to become a reporter for a large daily. Business or the UN are my preferred areas, but I am open-minded to other beats."

In the interim, he continues his export business and making puzzles. While looking for a suitable position in the field of journalism, he has been free-lancing as a correspondent since May for The Home News Tribune, a 100,000-circulation daily in New Jersey, based in East Brunswick, doing straight-news reporting as well as writing features on Asians, business, education and immigration.