No checks, mate

No checks, mate

Viswanathan Anand’s success at the World Chess Championships on Sunday was just the yearend achievement needed to banish memories of India's Y2K bug, its sporting annus horribilis. By patiently adopting the French defence against a recklessly bold and gung-ho Alexei Shirov to become the 15th world chess champion, the 31-year old has, however, done much more than merely overshadow cricket's hall of shame, circa 2000, or make amends for his countrymen's (and women's) lean pickings at the Sydney Olympics. Indeed, by wrapping up the title in four games, instead of the six allowed, Anand has in a sense reasserted India's ancient claim to the origins of this most cerebral of sports. And by finally beating the Spaniard to the $660,000 prize, he has comprehensively quelled all echoes of the cynical voices that crescendoed during his barren patch in 1999, that issued ominous warnings of an early end to the career of India's first grandmaster. Congratulations, Viswanathan Anand.

To be sure, the Tiger from Madras, as Anand is fondly referred to, had all along been the favourite. With Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Vladimir Kramnik (the man who finally vanquished the flamboyant Kasparov) not participating, through the knockout matches he had to field queries about his anticipated win, about the suddenly discounted value of the title. Anand, rightly, has consistently waved away these qualifications. Kasparov may still be the greatest chess champion of our times, Kramnik may be the man knocking at the door, a visibly paler Karpov may be a grand survivor... but Anand, after some spectacular wins over the years since 1987 and after giving tantalising glimpses of his potential every so often, has affixed his thumbprint in the record books. He is, after all, only the 15th man to secure the title since 1886. It is a staggering achievement in the best of times, but for a nation starved of sport icons beyond its pampered cricketers and its bickering tennis duo, Anand's story is irrigatedwith inspiration and dedication. All the factors routinely recited when justifying India's poor show at sundry meets could so easily have given Anand cause to throw in the towel: no institutional support in a discipline so zealously pursued by the erstwhile Soviet Union, no endorsements, almost insignificant acknowledgement for his early successes. If Anand's lonely journey has given hope to thousands of children, no matter whether they pursue chess or another sport, it has simultaneously cast a telling spotlight on the sport establishment's many acts of omission.

Anand's victory in Tehran also had its intriguing moments. It is interesting that the first documentary evidence of a game of chess being played outside India can be found in a Persian book dated somewhere between 650 and 750 AD, hinting at a match in the sixth century. Fittingly, the chess set is believed to have been a gift from an Indian king. It is somewhat mystifying then that chess was banned in Iran for a while after Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution, only to see an Indian triumph on its soil two decades later. May it be only the first in a long string of accomplishments.