Aa, Xi, Zo... Uhh, what's that?

Aa, Pahoehoe, Ux. You''d think these are just some vaguely strung, senseless alphabets not existing in any English dictionary.
But ask members of the Mumbai Scrabble club and they have a different story to tell.
"Aa and Pahoehoe are types of volcanic lava and Ux is Vietnamese currency," explains Dr Varisht Hingorani, the current chairman of the Mumbai Scrabble club.
For him just like all Scrabble players, "It''s the love of words" which draws him to the internationally popular word game.
The Mumbai Scrabble club was founded by Dr Dutia, an ex UN official with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), and has been in existence since 1998.
The club has about 110 members on it''s rolls including engineers, IIT students, housewives as well as school students.
And the Scrabble club saw it''s one day open tournament on Sunday at the Indian Gymkhana with about 26 players participating.
One of the enthusiastic participants at the tournament and probably the youngest was Saryu Satish, studying in Standard 4 at the St Gregarious High School at Chembur.
Two years ago, she started playing the game with her grandmother Mrs Sanghameshwaram who was a member of the Scrabble club.
The Scrabble bug bit her And she too has become a member and has been regularly attending sessions of the Club along with her grandmother.
And for her Scrabble is as much about the spirit of competition as it is about words and the language. This 9-year-old pretty matter of factly remarks, "I beat Parvati aunty by 30 points but Carol aunty beat me by 50."
Another one of the younger lot who is going places is Akshay Bhandarkar, who was placed 8th in the International Scrabble championship. He is all of 22.
"I started playing when I was nine, when my mother started a Scrabble club in Bahrain," he says.
Since then there''s been no looking back for Akshay who has played in International championships in Washington DC, London and Melbourne.
Adds Akshay, "The Americans and Canadians are tough competitors. But for Scrabble here in India, the potential is vast but has been largely untapped."
To spread the word about the game, the club is looking for strong financial support so as to bring people out of their homes and come play scrabble.
But lack of funds does not deter players who are Scrabble addicts and draws people from Colaba, Ambernath or Kopar Khairane to attend Club sessions held every second Sunday at the Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana. And Hingorani proudly adds, "The enthusiasm for Scrabble is unlimited!"
Some strange ones
AA: Rough jagged lava found in Hawaiian volcanoes
AE: One (Scots)
KO: A Maori digging stick
KY: Cows also (KYE)
LI: A Chinese distance unit
XI: A Greek letter
YU: Precious jade
ZO: A himalayan cross