Early days of the new millennium. A chess player in Calcutta has just become a Grandmaster or GM and a reporter meets him for a quote or two. The chess player says his Russian friends — most of them either on the verge of earning the GM norm or already GMs — would laugh if he told them he was being interviewed on becoming a GM. Becoming a GM was no big deal in Russia.

There is another story, this one from 1995. Suryasekhar Ganguly, then just 11 years and 10 months, beat Uzbek GM Gregory Serper and became an India-wide headline grabber. Just one win in one game became a thing of celebration. These are tales from the days when Viswanathan Anand was synonymous with chess in India.
Fast forward to the present. Chess is no longer just India’s first GM’s game. The baton has passed from Anand to a clutch of youngsters who have taken the chess world by storm and have become part of household chatter.

An 18-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa finished runner-up to Norway’s Magnus Carlsen in the Chess World Cup last month, giving tough competition to Isro’s Chandrayaan-3 landing in the curiosity stakes. People asking about his score against Carlsen, following the game online, an almost audible national expectation on whether he can win...

Such a run by chess on the national mindscape was beyond imagination even five years ago. It’s not just Praggu. Dommaraju Gukesh, 17, is ranked eighth in the live ratings, a place above Anand. He is now India’s No. 1, displacing the 52-year-old chess wizard. Then there are Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin, both 19.

While Gukesh, Praggu and Erigaisi are ranked in top-30 in the latest Fide rankings, Sarin is ranked 43rd. The trio has an Elo rating of 2,700 considered the benchmark for elite players. The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. “They are super-humans. Can play chess for 10-12 hours a day. At their age, when their peers are making reels on Instagram, you will see these players crouching before their computers playing chess,” says Erigaisi’s coach and GM Srinath Narayanan.

These boys also don’t get weary of travelling; chess entails quite a lot. Praggu travelled from Baku to Dusseldorf for the Fide World Rapid Teams Championship and from there to Chennai, New Delhi and finally Calcutta for the Asian Games camp and the Tata Steel Chess India meet. No fatigue, no monotony. They are like robots.

Absolutely amazing. The way chess has developed in India is just mindblowing. When I beat Serper, I was not even 12. Now they are becoming GMs by the time they turn 12 or 13,” gushes Ganguly.

“From cadet to the top level, India is dominating and this trend will continue. China was a threat but that has fizzled out,” says Calcutta- based GM Neelotpal Das.

True. Praggu beat celebrated US players Hikaru Nakamura, Italian-American Fabiano Caruana and compatriot Erigaisi en route to the World Cup final. Vidit Gujrathi stunned Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi in the last-16. As many as four Indians were playing in the last-eight, which was a first.

“They are so good that it’s difficult to say who is better than the other,” says India coach Shyam Sundar. “The way things are moving we should have a world champion in three to five years,” Praggu’s coach R.B. Ramesh sounds bullish. “We will have 100 GMs soon,” is what All India Chess Federation president Sanjay Kapoor has to say.

Praggu came to Ramesh when he was just eight. His parents, Rameshbabu and Nagalakshmi, enrolled their son and daughter Vaishali in Ramesh’s academy because the brother-sister duo was getting addicted to TV. “From a young age he was ready for the grind,” Ramesh remembers. “His mental make-up was also strong.” Ramesh refuses to take much credit for Praggu’s ascent. “It’s the player who matters. I am just part of the support system.”

Nagalakshmi has been the central figure in helping Praggu grow as a player. Like so many parents, who give their all just to ensure their children excel in the pursuit of their dreams, Nagalakshmi travels with Praggu and Vaishali wherever they play. In Baku last month, she was the picture of an engrossed mother watching her son make a move on the board. “My heart pounds every time I watch Praggu play,” she would later say.

Praggu and Gukesh are both from Velammal Vidyalaya, the school in Chennai that produces GMs in droves. Of the 83 Indian GMs, 18 are from Velammal Vidyalaya, that’s almost 20 per cent. “The school gives its students the impetus to play chess. You do not have to worry about marks, attendance anything. Just keep on playing,” Srinath Narayanan, an alumnus of Velammal Vidyalaya, says. “Sometimes, they help you find sponsors too,” adds another former student, Shyam Sundar.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown also contributed to the young chess brigade in honing their skills. When the world was cooped up and battling Covid-19, chess was about the only sport that thrived. A bevy of online chess tournaments sprouted out of nowhere and Indian youngsters like Praggu, Gukesh, Sarin and Erigaisi started rubbing shoulders with the Carlsens and Nakamuras. The games were followed by millions of Indians and soon it became sort of a rage.

“That was a revolution and no doubt our players improved by leaps and bounds,” says Ramesh. Ganguly agrees that the online boom helped the game, but also credits the seniors’ role. “Anand was the benchmark and the players after him helped the game grow. GMs who became coaches, men like Ramesh Magesh Panchanathan, Srinath and Shyam Sundar played a big role,” says Ganguly, who himself dabbles in coaching.

But amidst the bountiful news, there remains reason to feel that everything that glitters is not gold. The lack of sponsors for players with Elo ratings below 2,600 is something that makes us ponder on the future of chess in India. There are stories of parents mortgaging their properties and jewellery to help their children play tournaments abroad; some of them have risked going broke.

“If there is one Praggu, there are 999 who have not made it to the top grade despite talent and hard work. So many players leave the game and pursue higher studies or just grab a regular job,” a bitter parent says.

Calcutta-based GM Diptayan Ghosh is a case in point. He has a master’s in economics from Delhi School of Economics and joined a leading bank in Mumbai. Soon he got bored and returned to chess. With no sponsor to back him, he travels on his own money to play in foreign tournaments and then the prize money he gets helps him meet the expenses of his next trip. “It’s a tough life but I am not complaining. Chess keeps me alive,” he says.

True, in the game of 64 squares, not everyone can hope to be a shining Knight.