Memories from a past life in Chess
Catching up with some close friends from the chess fraternity a few weeks back, took me deep down the memory lane. This was quite like visiting a childhood home or an ancestral place after decades, one where you had spent memorable years a really long, long time ago.
Total Recall
As the conversations unfurled, an over-abundance of experiences and reminiscences came back flooding my memory. Just like that final tide in the river which breaches the levee, and floods the plains.
All the chess camps I had attended, the tournaments I played, the wonderful (and weird) places I had travelled to, the numerous friends & acquaintances, the victorious triumphs & also the desolate moments of crushing defeats from that life became all too vivid, once again.
My pursuits in Chess almost feel like a previous life, surreal and almost unbelievable. But on the other hand, perfectly vivid and clear memories of even insignificant happenings from that phase returned then, to puzzle me.
An abandoned pursuit
Perhaps this is what happens when you pursue something for years together, with undivided attention. You pour your heart into it and spend a greater part of the waking moments, thinking, breathing and living the passion. And then one fine day you relinquish it and walk away, whatever may be the reason, to never return to it again.
A few lives later, this past sends across some messengers who settle down in a conversation, and gently rekindle memories. Before long you are reliving the events, days and minutes of this life, supposedly long forgotten.
This exactly was my feeling, and as I traverse on this total recall, I will try and capture some of the reminiscences and nuggets of experience from that past life of mine.
A Journey begins
It all started with my sister getting initiated into chess at school. With my dad doing a bulk of the early coaching, I often played near the chess board at home. As with any younger sibling, my chess journey began by mimicking her.
The 1980s were early days for chess in India, and there weren’t many tournaments or professional players. Viswanathan Anand became India’s first Grand Master a little while later, in 1988.
As my sister started playing chess tournaments in Madurai, I ended up participating in the open-age boys category, playing with elder kids, while I barely knew how to move the pieces. As my sister started winning matches, I took pride in finishing my game faster than her, often by giving away pieces.
An unlikely qualification
Soon, my sister won the district tournament and qualified for the state-level championship. Tamil Nadu was then considered one of the stronger chess playing states in the country, and this being the first state-level tournament for my sister, it was considered an important one.
The week-long match at Pollachi, turned into a family outing during the vacations. I hadn’t ranked in any tournament, let alone be qualified at the district-level. To keep me engaged during that week, I was put into the State Under-10 Boys category as a ‘donor entry’, a paid mode for unqualified players to participate.
To everyone’s surprise (perhaps me included) I ended up winning my first tournament, which was the state championship and qualified to play the Nationals. Unfortunately for my sister, she didn’t make it, and with me contesting the first India-level tournament, it was her turn to get in as a donor-entry!
The pursuit goes professional
It was after this national tournament in 1990 that my serious chess journey began. I got trained under professional mentors, scouted far-and-wide for opportunities to practice and took up chess almost full-time.
Also, the chess scene in India blossomed in the 1990s with a string of inspiring successes by Viswanathan Anand, and the rise of several senior players and International Masters. Gradually there were more regular tournaments in most states & districts, and the fraternity became stronger.
With chess as the prime focus, school took a clear backseat for me. I attended the occasional school classes in between a continuous string of tournaments & travel, always catching up on the backlogs. When the school finally raised strong objections, my parents didn’t relent and instead switched me to a sports-friendly school, to keep the continuity in chess.
I won many district and state-level tournaments, participated in several National level tournaments and ended up with a decent showing and top 10 ranking in some of them. These were memorable years with some wonderful experiences. The favourite part for my parents was the coverage in national newspapers and magazines, carefully preserved by them over the years.
A fork in the road
After almost 7 years of playing serious chess with an intent of taking it up professionally, and successfully avoiding all distractions, it was board exam time. And, I wasn’t spared the typical Indian middle-class household’s dilemma.
The choice was between a path towards professional education leading to a ‘stable’ career with a ‘serious’ job, or to continue focus on chess leaving education on the back burner leading to a supposedly ‘uncertain’ career by ‘gaming’ chess.
My parents relented, going with the conventional wisdom of the time, which seemed a no-brainer to most people around. So the decision was made to apply brakes on the then-accelerating chess journey and switch gears to education. I bundled not just my chess kits or books, but a lifetime of chess experiences, to take a total and permanent pause.
When I look back, its surprising that we took this decision with such rapidity, inspite of firmly believing & investing years of time and effort into chess, and seemingly resolute. I had no independent opinion in all of this and tamely went with the choices made for me.
It is no coincidence that my sister’s chess journey met a very similar fate too. She played her last tournament some months before her board exams, the State qualifiers in which she stood first. But she never played the next level, nor another tournament; one more career sacrificed at the altar of education.
Days of faded glory
After taking a pause just before high school, I never quite went back to playing chess. Apart from a couple of tournaments here and there, I briefly dabbled in Chess at the college level, which was a distant shade of the professional chess scene.
Playing at the university level, I qualified in each of the 3 years to play the All-India inter-university, but I didn’t make any dent at the next level. And those were the days of faded glory, and it was more a matter of staying in touch, as opposed to playing from the soul and living the game.
As I reflect on my journey, there are times I’ve felt that I squandered an opportunity, or could have persisted for a wee bit longer. Though Chess probably wasn’t meant to be the career path, it has given me so much. After all, the years lived pursuing a passion never go waste, even if the passion in itself ends up a distant memory some day.
The learnings from those years of unbridled passion in the game has enriched me in so many direct and indirect aspects. This will be the subject of an upcoming post on Learnings for Life from my days with Chess. Until then, I leave you with this great quote from Jobs:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future.” — Steve Jobs
