CHENNAI: What started off as a hobby for this 21-year-old gamer, turned out to be a stairway to fame. Rohan Chandhoke, a computer science engineering student from Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering, started gaming when he was 15, the age at which most people go through a ‘gaming phase’. However, this was not a phase for Rohan. “After I had enough of Roadrash, Doom and Quake, I got into proper gaming in Class 10 after my friends and I decided to find a new hobby together.
That’s when I started to play COD4 (Call of Duty 4), a first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward in the year 2007,” he recalls. Soon the hobby turned into an obsession and he started frequenting a gaming parlour. “I was so passionate about gaming that my parents got me a PC as a reward for getting into the Computer Science group in Class 11 and that’s when I started gaming at home,” says Rohan, who adds his parents got worried about his ‘obsession’ after a point...even taking the PC away from him. “I used to bunk tuitions in order to go to the gaming parlour after that,” he chuckles.
The young gamer soon started participating in online tournaments like Frag League, ICCL 1 and 2 (Indian Call of Duty 4 Champions League). This motivated him to take part in college-level competitions as well. “Some of the symposiums that I took part in and won were Artifex, conducted by the civil engineering department in my college and Pranav, conducted by the ECE department in Meenakshi College,” says Rohan. Having taken part in several college culturals such as SRM University’s ‘Milan’, which conducts South India’s biggest gaming tournament which he won in the year 2016 has added to his confidence.
“My team won `50,000 prize money in that tournament and it was one of my best days...it motivated me to continue gaming,” he says. Rohan and his friends have also taken part in other LAN tournaments such as the COD4 championship, LXG Minor and the Battleground. “One of the best parts of my gaming life was when I joined EvoX (Evolution-X), one of India’s best teams in COD4 for the online tournament ACCL in 2014. We managed to come second,” smiles Rohan. He has also taken part in NIT Delhi’s gaming tournament with this team, where they were able to reach the semi finals.
What’s the secret of his success though? Teamwork, coordination, focus and having a good rapport with all the players in your team. “Since most tournaments in COD4 are of the format ‘Search and Destroy’, wherein one team has to plant a bomb at two bomb sites and the other team has to either stop the bomb from being planted, or diffuse it after it has been planted within a stipulated time, the team has to stay coordinated and focused. This is one of the reasons I’ve always tried to maintain a good rapport with my teammates,” he avers. Being the extroverted person that he is, he has made a lot of friends through gaming including those from different countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Other than the time he spends gaming, he also likes coding and travelling.