Crossword for Friday 4 September 2026

Across

1. 1. Make suitable for something different from the original purpose
2. 6. Letters on some policemen's shoulders
3. 9. Follows port, or one could be in a library
4. 10. Family name of the stand-in everyman
5. 11. Wrist's counterpart in the lower body
6. 12. Second-level lease, sort of (with sub)
7. 13. Dawn on, with -ise
8. 14. A superstition may be one
9. 15. Satyajit Ray's seminal work chronicles this man's life
10. 17. Popular massage oil that can make your eyes water
11. 22. Count of occurrences of this moment
12. 23. ____ Man, the premier jazz venue in New Delhi
13. 25. Sequel to the card game Uno, aptly
14. 26. Legend from the vanar sena with the immovable leg
15. 27. One can help you defeat Saruman, or (abbr.) cure an earache
16. 28. Karachi neighborhood made famous by a recent Bollywood hit

Down

1. 1. (cryptic) Alphabet leader before an indicator of long distance
2. 2. (cryptic) A lonely D
3. 3. Padma Bhushan awardee with a hit that counts to thirteen
4. 4. One of nearly a thousand in Madurai's Meenakshi Temple
5. 5. A snappier substitute for "bottom" in top to bottom
6. 6. Purposelessly
7. 7. Poe was one, aptly
8. 8. Stereotypical big-bellied merchant
9. 14. Now called a war of independence, it was labelled this in 1857
10. 16. Related to the Pope
11. 17. A point in a large network, or, split in two, "Germany missing"
12. 18. Another name for 10A
13. 19. The hosiery garment popularly known as baniyan
14. 20. Ash-smeared sadhu of the Kumbh-Mela
15. 21. (Hindi) A package of fiery powder or juicy kernels
16. 24. Format for colourful kits and white balls, for short