Tamil Nadu has always been a chess-conscious state. Not many know that the great son of Bharata Mata, Maharishi V. V. S. Aiyer, was a big chess player —so big that the chess problems he solved were published in chess magazines in England and Holland. It is said that the earliest chess club in Chennai is the Mylapore Solar Chess Club, established around 1920 by K. S. Subramanya Aiyer. Manuel Aaron became the first Indian FIDE International Master (1961).
He did his best in various capacities for the Tamil Nadu Chess Association and the Indian Chess Federation; he was also a journalist. Not many know that one of the first corporates to support chess in India was also from Tamil Nadu. It was the great philanthropic industrialist from Pollachi, Dr. N. Mahalingam of the Sakthi Group. A chance meeting with Aaron in 1966 pushed Dr. N. Mahalingam into the chess scene. He later became the president of the Tamil Nadu Chess Association and partnered with Aaron to promote chess.
Tamil Nadu – The Chess Master Factory
The second FIDE IM, V. Ravikumar (1978), was also from Tamil Nadu. The third IM, Raja Ravi Sekhar (1981), was also from Tamil Nadu. India had to wait for its first Grandmaster until 1988 when Viswanathan Anand stormed into the scene. The Russian Culture Center in Kasuri Rangan Salai was home to the Tal Chess Club, the sanctuary of the chess-crazed Tamil Nadu. There is this very famous story about when Vishy Anand was introduced to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in May 2012. This was before his World Championship match against Boris Gelfand of Israel at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in 2012. Anand is said to have told President Putin that he learnt his ropes at the Tal Chess Club at the Russian Culture Center in Chennai. The president is supposed to have quipped, “So we brought this upon ourselves.”
1988, the year Vishwanathan Anand became a FIDE Grandmaster, proved to be a watershed moment. His success further galvanised the Tamil Nadu Chess scene, with many, like GM R. B. Ramesh, crediting their taking up competitive chess after Anand. Today, Tamil Nadu boasts 29 out of the 83 FIDE Grandmasters. We are also home to eight Women Grandmasters. If we take a leaf from the Canadian writer Malcolm Gladwell, Vishwanathan Anand was The Tipping Point of not just the Tamil Nadu chess scene but for the whole of India.
Post Tal Chess Club
Tal Chess Club folded with the breakup of the USSR. GM R. B. Ramesh and many other able hands have since filled the vacuum. Ramesh needs a special mention, as he retired as a player very early when he was only 32. Another story is that he became a coach when he was 22, taking charge of the Indian Junior Chess Team that attended the Asian Junior Chess Championships (1998) in Iran. He struck gold right from his first assignment as a coach, returning with winners in both the boy’s and girls’ categories – Tejas Bakre and Vijayalakshmi Subburaman, respectively. 1999 saw Ramesh coaching Aarthie Ramaswamy to a World U-18 Championship. It is another story that Aarthie and Ramesh are married now, and together, they successfully run Chess Gurukul, the academy in Chennai that nurtures and mentors most of the top chess talents from India.
Vishy Anand – The Father Of Indian Chess Boom
Vishy Anand’s role as a mentor and a pillar of support for chess in India cannot be downplayed. Every Indian chess player looks forward to the fabled visit to Vishy Anand’s trophy room when they become a GM, where Anand spends time with the new GM discussing his/ her game. Many have rightly called Anand, the father of the Indian chess boom. His Westbridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA) has been at the forefront of making many champions, including the reigning World Chess Champion, D. Gukesh. Gukesh had this to say after his win, “Vishy Sir was never officially a part of the team but we all know he was supporting me. He attended one of the days during the training camp and also helped remotely for a few sessions”.
The other Chennai institution that deserves credit for promoting chess in a big way is Velammal Vidhyalaya. This school nurtures many precious chess talents from India, including Grandmasters, D. Gukesh, R. Praggnanandhaa, S. P. Sethuraman, Leon Mendonca, K. Priyadharshan, B. Adhiban, Vishnu Prasanna and R. Vaishali and Women Grandmaster, V. Varshini and Women International Master, R. Rakshitta. This school has been the powerhouse of Indian chess since 2005. They have won the World School Chess Championships five times, with D. Gukesh and R. Praggnanandhaa being part of the winning team in 2021.
Former TN CM J Jayalalithaa’s Contribution
Amma J Jayalalitha is another person who did her bit to promote chess in Tamil Nadu. Some of us remember Amma using Assembly Rule 110 to announce a series of welfare schemes and policies during her term as the Chief Minister. One of her famous announcements was the school reforms in August 2011. Part of that was a plan called the “7 to 17 program” to take chess to all the government schools in Tamil Nadu among children aged 7 to 17. She also brought the World Chess Championships 2013 to Chennai, where Magnus Carlsen defeated Vishwanathan Anand to win the title.
Amma’s fondness and support for sports in Tamil Nadu is well known. Therefore, her championing of the cause of chess shouldn’t come as a surprise. Then came the 44th Chess Olympiad, which happened in Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu, in 2022, opened by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India 2, coached by GM R. B. Ramesh, included D. Gukesh, Nihal Sarin, R. Praggnanandhaa, B. Adhiban, and Raunak Sadhwani won the bronze medal in the team championship. D. Gukesh made his mark here winning the gold medal for Board 1. The Indian women, Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, R. Vaishali, Tania Sachdev and Bhakti Kulkarni also won the bronze.
Tamil Nadu has always been the chess capital of India. With D. Gukesh winning the World Chess Championships 2024 and great mentors and ambassadors of the game like Vishwanathan Anand, R. B. Ramesh, Aarthie Ramaswamy, etc. propelling the game, we are going to see many champions from the state in the coming years. The following Thirukkural fits the chess scene in Tamil Nadu perfectly.
நிலவரை நீள்புகழ் ஆற்றின் புலவரைப்
போற்றாது புத்தேள் உலகு. (Fame, 234)
“Behold the man that hath won a lasting, worldwide fame: the Gods on high prefer him even before saints.” – The Kural Or The Maxims Of Tiruvalluvar – V V S Aiyar.
Raja Baradwaj is a marketing communications professional who is currently working with a leading technology multi-national company. He is an avid reader, a history buff, cricket player, writer, Sanskrit & Dharma Sastra student.
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