Chess is on my mind a lot tonight, simply because I came
across a quote whilst watching 'Kingdom of Heaven' that reminded me of it earlier in the evening. In it the King Baldwin V says,
''The whole world is in chess. Any move can be the death of you. Do anything except remain where you started and you can't be sure of your end. None of us know our end really, or what hand will guide us there. A king, a father, may move a man. That man can also move himself. And only then does that man truly begin his own game.''
One of the most
sophisticated and time-investing games of all time, chess has an ability to
bring out the tactical and strategic geniuses in people, if proper time and
skills are devoted to its demanding ways. It’s a wonderful simulation of, not
combat, but warfare and therefore is a game of brains, and not brawn. Yet it
does have a confrontational nature about it that makes me uneasy. After all,
simulating war is but a prelude to its actual execution. And like that
powerfully unsettling quote from ‘’The West Wing’’ rings out, ‘’All wars are
crimes.’’ It does leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth. In chess, like in war,
there is a victor and a loser, where sometimes the victory is pyrrhic or the
defeat devastating, or sometimes there’s a draw as both armies bleed each other
to a stalemate.
But the nature of chess and it’s functionality and role in
the modern world is that of a brain-sharpening tool and the gauge of your
cognitive and intellectual capabilities. Perhaps, it is an unfair assumption,
because like in other specialized tasks chess requires a specific set of skills
that enable you to excel at it. Perhaps, you may not possess those skills but
have other ones which still range within the categories of intellectual
strengths. I personally, was quite fond of the game and adept at it too when I
was younger, a boy of 8-9. I went to these chess classes that my parents
earnestly got me into, and got quite good at it. It reminds me of our trip to
Darjeeling, and that little chess adventure with a soldier. My parents often
took me to different corners of India during the summer holidays, as the heat
of Mumbai got unbearable. We would pack our bags, pick a destination and travel
by the graces of the mighty Indian railways. This time, we decided to go to the
eastern states of Bengal, and Sikkim – right on the Himalayan frontier with
China. My grandparents decided to accompany us on this trip as well, and their
presence made it all the more memorable.
As we boarded our train at the bustling and rumbling VT (now
CST) station in downtown Mumbai, we laid out our luggage in the lower berths
and I decided to nap away as I had been awoken with a good shaking in the early
hours of dawn by my mother. This was so we would be able to board the train whose
departures were always inconspicuously early – when the sun had yet to rise
from it’s nocturnal ventures! As I compensated for my loss of sleep, I dreamt
of the mighty mountains that awaited me – of whom I had no physical idea as I
had only seen them in the movies and television shows. As I awoke from my
Himalayan slumber, I saw a man dressed in the uniform of the armed forces
occupying the berth on the other side of the aisle. He was a man in his
thirties, with a short trimmed moustache, and a long stern face. His skin was a
burnt shade of brown, like the wet soil after a tepid rain shower, and he had a
slender yet athletic build. Ignoring him, I clambered down from my berth up
top, and started bothering my parents to feed me with some form of nutrition,
as I was want to do then, what with being a growing and pampered child. I used
to love railway food, and so when my mother offered me some home-cooked snack
she’d packed along, I promptly made it clear what I really wanted. After much
deliberation she finally caved in, and stopped the little man from the
pantry-car who was selling tomato soup. Those days, the tomato soup came in a
Styrofoam cup for an affordable 1-2 Rs. There was a rustic deliciousness to
this soup with its thick consistency that was sprayed with a healthy dollop of
crushed pepper. I sipped at it with some trepidation at first, as it burnt my
mouth even as I took small sips. But once it’d become a bit cooler I indulged
in larger sips of its creamy goodness.
Once I had downed it in my tummy, its warmth insulated me
against the coolness of the air-conditioning of the coach, which was getting a
bit overwhelming now. So, I made myself busy by peering through the windows as
the rural heartlands of India with its villages frozen in time, and small towns
shaking off its apathy and slumber passed by. Yet, the swaths of civilization
were still punctuated by some large and somehow surreptitious chunks of forests
and woodland; untouched and pristine. Soon, rain started pattering upon the
thick glass of the windows, and the steady drizzle soon turned into a
torrential downpour, as the monsoons tend to.
The view completely blurred by the curtain of water, I turned
my attention inwards to the compartment I was in. I walked past the soldier sitting
across the aisle whilst indulging in some sort of snack which I didn’t notice,
and moved towards the washrooms. People were huddled in groups on all the
seats. Some with blankets wrapped around their bodies and toques decked on
their heads. The whole wool and cotton show! As I opened the door of the
compartment to pay a visit to the washroom, I was welcomed by a gush of warm
wind, unperturbed by the incessant air-conditioning that I’d just left behind.
But, I was rudely stopped by a rather large body that I bumped into head-first
as soon as I opened the door. As I recovered from the shock, I was greeted by a
rather kind face of an elderly man with a walrus moustache and a scowling pair
of monstrous eyes. A bit scared, I stood behind him in utmost silence as the
line inched forward. The transition from the cool air of the coach and the
tepid breezes near the washroom made my bladder swell up for some reason, and
what was earlier an exploratory mission quickly turned into an emergency! As I
waited there, bouncing lightly whilst holding my crotch, the intimidating man
in front of me saw that I had to go really bad, and pushed me ahead of himself
and gave what appeared to be, a gentle smile! Never judge a book by it’s cover,
I suppose.
The whole shindig in the washroom now over, I headed back to
the comfort of my parents company. Once there, I asked my dad if we could play
chess (I finally arrive at the point of this whole story!). I had been partaking
in lessons at the Mulund gymkhana for a while now and I’d gotten pretty good.
‘Pretty good’ then meant the ability to beat my father, in any given event.
Then I’d be a self-proclaimed master. Either way, I wanted to confirm my hegemony
and that involved a constant round of games with my father, who willingly
obliged.
We set the mat, which was lined with a thick coat of fur and
had a vinyl top, lined by plastic and paper that could be rolled like a
newspaper and laid out again. The pieces themselves were made out of porcelain,
and I had grown quite fond of them. They shone and shimmered in the shaky light
of the Indian Railways, and made for a majestic sight to my childish eyes. As I
went about setting the pieces on the board, I examined each of them with a joy
of undisturbed ecstasy. Those little joys hardly visit me any longer, but in
the depths of my childhood they were constant companions. I went about setting
the pieces on the mat that was swaying back and forth with the inertia of the
railway carriage. Then I looked up at father, and said, ‘’Let’s play!’’
After choosing white, and a flurry of attacking moves later,
I stood upon the field of victory. It was a tough battle and father had fought
with fury and tact. Yet, the might of my combined Knight-Rook-Queen onslaught
had been too much for his defenses and his King was cornered in the end.
Gloating over my victory, I recommended a round two of the contest. My father
gently declined, and went on about doing things fathers do. I was left to my
own devices, and this meant a return to reading because no one was willing to
play with me and my bloated ego. This is when the soldier sitting across from
us spoke to us for the first time.
‘’Would you like to play with me beta?’’ he inquired, and I immediately looked to my father for his approval.
He smiled and gave his permission, perhaps wondering if the contest would lead
me to further glory or humility. My first feelings were that of excitement that
I’d found someone who wanted to play with me, but they were soon replaced by an
intense dread. It had just dawned on me, that he was an army man. Suddenly
visions of him learning about the battles of yore came rushing to my head. He
must’ve learnt of Hannibal’s brilliant envelopment at Cannae, and Rommel’s dash
through the North African deserts and Alexander’s hammer-and-anvil at Gaugamela.
He must’ve learnt about every military genius out there and I was to face their
combined strategic genius on that board. Alas, back then I didn’t know how to
distinguish the officers from the soldiers, and perhaps he was well read on all
these issues, but looking back the probability seems mightily low. Nonetheless,
my fear of him had crippled my initial cocky flair and I grew apprehensive of
the whole affair. My normal advantages rested in my openings and so I had
planned on a conservative opening to lull him into a false sense of security,
but then I sensed something stir within me.
I felt a surge of reckless abandon coursing through my veins
as it started swelling up in my brain and then rushed towards my fingers as I
opened with a Stonewall Attack. I had remembered learning about it in my chess class,
but had never completed it successfully. Yet I knew of it’s potency and it is a
most aggressive and bold opening. As the name implies, the Stonewall setup is a
solid formation which is hard to overrun by force. If Black fails to react
energetically to the Stonewall setup, White may launch a lethal attack on the
black king, typically by playing the knight from f3 to e5, advancing the g-pawn
to drive away the defending black knight, and making a well-timed bishop
sacrifice at h7 when White can bring one of the major pieces to the h-file.
(The Stonewall Attack)
My opponent had perhaps underestimated me, and therefore
when he saw this child open with a Stonewall he was rather taken back. His traditional defenses, that he opened with, were looking increasingly vulnerable as my pieces
inched towards his king. This is when he himself spun through a surprise that
hit me really hard. He used the Stonewall variation of the Dutch defense and
completely caught me off-guard! He made a move to maneuver both his bishops with
a b6 and Ba6 aiming to trade off the dangerous white bishop on d3, and a
kingside move with g7-g6 taking away my idea of attacking h7. An early
development of his light-squared bishop to f5 also cut across my plans. I was on the verge of a crushing defeat.
Suddenly my bold gamble had led to a disarray on the board
as a commensurate slaughter continued from both sides. But that was when I saw
an opening towards checkmate. Back then, I never sacrificed my queen. I would
sacrifice every other piece but I had this irrational attachment to the Queen
and had lost many a game because I wasn’t ready to play her to her potential.
That was the day when it changed. By now, the gripping game had captured the concentration
of my parents, and my grandparents. My mother, who normally ignored the game
was raptured as her son battled the army man in a slug-fest. Some of the fellow
passengers from the adjacent berths too were looking on. The army man had grown
a bit frustrated at what he had earlier thought was going to be a walk in the
park.
Sensing his frustration, I realized he was seeking that
death blow to cripple me completely. Therefore, I moved my Queen forward to
entice his Knight into a killing blow. He sensed that the child had goofed up
and immediately moved the Knight towards my Queen in a final onslaught to
incapacitate me. Once he took the bait, my rooks sprang into action, and within
three moves and the death of my Queen, had cornered his King into a surrender.
I looked up at him, and said ‘
’Uncleji, check mate…’’ as the train chugged towards the mountains
of my victorious dreams, teaching me the lesson of a necessary sacrifice.
