Musings on Chaturanga-4 Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan We are a cricket crazy nation. Other sports and games have gotten step motherly treatment. It is only of late we have recognised the sporting
Musings on Chaturanga-4
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
We are a cricket crazy nation. Other sports and games have gotten step motherly treatment. It is only of late we have recognised the sporting potential in other sports and games.Chess is ours to belong. We had international masters. Just one Viswanathan Anand, trained by his mother in Philippines started a revolution. We now have grandmasters by the dozens and more are in the pipeline. Such Olympiads would set off a phenomenon. It would be inspirational without our realising it. Just imagine India one day cricket win in 1983 World Cup. Now we are numero uno in all forms of cricket and IPL has made us the commercial hub as we hold all the economic aces.
Chess is played by more countries than aligned to United Nations. 186 countries are participating in this Olympiad, after Pakistan peevishly pulled out after reaching the venue, citing travel of the Torch to Srinagar, as ‘disputed territory’. Utter nonsense, which makes no sense since only POK is disputed territory in real and diplomatic reality. Why go there? Forget it.
I followed the first of the matches on live television. What? Chess- running commentary? Why not? Millions were following, world over, with experts explaining the moves. What has gone ahead? Where the game stood? Where it was going? Where it could? Which moves were novel? Whether the players were just playing from memory of a long gone game? What blunders they were committing? Whether opening salvo was followed by the middle game and end game was closing it as it could? So many nuances, explained with the Board on display and moves marked with cursors. Easy to keep track and enjoy the game, even if a nincompoop at that level. Or at least follow it religiously for a few minutes and drink the nation’s monumental moments.
Now the anecdotal route. Sushila Viswanathan was mother of our own world champion Viswanathan Anand. She was 79 and died in her sleep. We owe it all and must ever pay tribute to the amazing lady who made Viswanathan Anand what he is today.
The 79 year old lady was known for her impeccable contribution to Anand’s successful chess career.Sushila found Anand’s interest in chess when he was just five. Since then she supported him, taught him basic moves of chess and even accompanied him to the tournaments when he became a professional player.
“I don’t want to say that I was behind his achievement. A mother has to be by the side of the child taking baby steps in any field. In my case, it happened to be chess,”she said in one of her interviews . This mother of five times chess champion hailed from a family of lawyers who played chess and it came naturally to her. Anand had an interesting anecdote to share when she accompanied him for his first Chess Olympiad as a 14-year-old at Thessaloniki, Greece in 1984.Today, Anand is mentor to the strong Indian side in the 44th Olympiad.
Here is the Anand recall. “I had just earned my international rating almost a year back and was totally overawed by seeing all the top players at the Olympiad. Soviet Union then, still was a formidable force without the presence of Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov who were fighting for the World title bout. In those days access to chess material and games was very limited and the only source was the Chess Informant founded by Aleksander Matanovic and Milivojd Molerovic
which published all the top games played in a year in one or two editions,” said Anand in a statement.
“ At that point, I had wished that at least one of my games should be published in the Informant. Once at the venue, I remember excitedly pointing out the person in charge of the informant to my mother. After I left for my game, my mother went and met the person in charge and mentioned that she would like one of her son’s games to be published in the Informant. The Gentleman remarked that many players requested for their games to be included but this was the first time that a Mother had come and insisted on her son’s game to be included and who was he to deny,” he added.
International Master Manuel Aaron recalled, “ She had been his mentor and guide all his life, a very nice and gentle lady who always had a smile on her face,” he told The Hindu .
“In his early days, Anand had to struggle for government support,” recalled Aaron. “Then she used to call up the government agencies to check whether her son’s name had been cleared and so on. There was no STD facility then. She had to place trunk calls.She once jokingly told me, ‘If I had not made all those phone calls, I would have had enough money to take my son half way round the world.’”
Aaron also recollected his visit to the Anand household in 2000 to congratulate him on his first World Championship title win after defeating Alexei Shirov. “When I went there, she was discussing some of the moves. And all of them were relevant moves. She was not only a good mother but also a very good chess player.”
Grandmaster R.B. Ramesh, who runs Chess Gurukul in the city – and coaches Praga and sister Vaishali, and was the coach of the Indian team, which won a bronze medal in the Tromso Olympiad in Norway , dwelt on how important a role she played in Anand’s formative years.
“For a young child, to take up a game like chess it is important for them to not lose interest,” he said. “Due to parents’ high expectations and other things, it does happen. So it is very important to nurture the interest in them and that needs proper mentoring. Anand’s mother played that role very well. “Without Anand it’s tough to imagine Indian chess. Without his mother, it’s tough to imagine Anand,” he added.
“ These days you see parents go aggressive,” said Aaron. “They are too anxious. They have their own opinion of their children which others and the association people might not share. But she was never that. And she never complained.”
Mothers know best. All the time.
( Author of Mahakavi Subramania Bharathiyar-to be published on 15th Aug,2022- and practising advocate in the Madras High Court)
Musings on Chaturanga-4
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
We are a cricket crazy nation. Other sports and games have gotten step motherly treatment. It is only of late we have recognised the sporting potential in other sports and games.Chess is ours to belong. We had international masters. Just one Viswanathan Anand, trained by his mother in Philippines started a revolution. We now have grandmasters by the dozens and more are in the pipeline. Such Olympiads would set off a phenomenon. It would be inspirational without our realising it. Just imagine India one day cricket win in 1983 World Cup. Now we are numero uno in all forms of cricket and IPL has made us the commercial hub as we hold all the economic aces.
Chess is played by more countries than aligned to United Nations. 186 countries are participating in this Olympiad, after Pakistan peevishly pulled out after reaching the venue, citing travel of the Torch to Srinagar, as ‘disputed territory’. Utter nonsense, which makes no sense since only POK is disputed territory in real and diplomatic reality. Why go there? Forget it.
I followed the first of the matches on live television. What? Chess- running commentary? Why not? Millions were following, world over, with experts explaining the moves. What has gone ahead? Where the game stood? Where it was going? Where it could? Which moves were novel? Whether the players were just playing from memory of a long gone game? What blunders they were committing? Whether opening salvo was followed by the middle game and end game was closing it as it could? So many nuances, explained with the Board on display and moves marked with cursors. Easy to keep track and enjoy the game, even if a nincompoop at that level. Or at least follow it religiously for a few minutes and drink the nation’s monumental moments.
Now the anecdotal route. Sushila Viswanathan was mother of our own world champion Viswanathan Anand. She was 79 and died in her sleep. We owe it all and must ever pay tribute to the amazing lady who made Viswanathan Anand what he is today.
The 79 year old lady was known for her impeccable contribution to Anand’s successful chess career.Sushila found Anand’s interest in chess when he was just five. Since then she supported him, taught him basic moves of chess and even accompanied him to the tournaments when he became a professional player.
“I don’t want to say that I was behind his achievement. A mother has to be by the side of the child taking baby steps in any field. In my case, it happened to be chess,”she said in one of her interviews . This mother of five times chess champion hailed from a family of lawyers who played chess and it came naturally to her. Anand had an interesting anecdote to share when she accompanied him for his first Chess Olympiad as a 14-year-old at Thessaloniki, Greece in 1984.Today, Anand is mentor to the strong Indian side in the 44th Olympiad.
Here is the Anand recall. “I had just earned my international rating almost a year back and was totally overawed by seeing all the top players at the Olympiad. Soviet Union then, still was a formidable force without the presence of Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov who were fighting for the World title bout. In those days access to chess material and games was very limited and the only source was the Chess Informant founded by Aleksander Matanovic and Milivojd Molerovic
which published all the top games played in a year in one or two editions,” said Anand in a statement.
“ At that point, I had wished that at least one of my games should be published in the Informant. Once at the venue, I remember excitedly pointing out the person in charge of the informant to my mother. After I left for my game, my mother went and met the person in charge and mentioned that she would like one of her son’s games to be published in the Informant. The Gentleman remarked that many players requested for their games to be included but this was the first time that a Mother had come and insisted on her son’s game to be included and who was he to deny,” he added.
International Master Manuel Aaron recalled, “ She had been his mentor and guide all his life, a very nice and gentle lady who always had a smile on her face,” he told The Hindu .
“In his early days, Anand had to struggle for government support,” recalled Aaron. “Then she used to call up the government agencies to check whether her son’s name had been cleared and so on. There was no STD facility then. She had to place trunk calls.She once jokingly told me, ‘If I had not made all those phone calls, I would have had enough money to take my son half way round the world.’”
Aaron also recollected his visit to the Anand household in 2000 to congratulate him on his first World Championship title win after defeating Alexei Shirov. “When I went there, she was discussing some of the moves. And all of them were relevant moves. She was not only a good mother but also a very good chess player.”
Grandmaster R.B. Ramesh, who runs Chess Gurukul in the city – and coaches Praga and sister Vaishali, and was the coach of the Indian team, which won a bronze medal in the Tromso Olympiad in Norway , dwelt on how important a role she played in Anand’s formative years.
“For a young child, to take up a game like chess it is important for them to not lose interest,” he said. “Due to parents’ high expectations and other things, it does happen. So it is very important to nurture the interest in them and that needs proper mentoring. Anand’s mother played that role very well. “Without Anand it’s tough to imagine Indian chess. Without his mother, it’s tough to imagine Anand,” he added.
“ These days you see parents go aggressive,” said Aaron. “They are too anxious. They have their own opinion of their children which others and the association people might not share. But she was never that. And she never complained.”
Mothers know best. All the time.
( Author of Mahakavi Subramania Bharathiyar-to be published on 15th Aug,2022- and practising advocate in the Madras High Court)
