CHENNAI: It's that time of December. The days are shorter and the weather several degrees cooler as the winter begins to set all over the country. That means the end of the year is round the corner and the often thankless exercise of writing about the best Indian chess moments is here.
In 2024, a lot of Indian athletes and teams excelled on the world stage. Neeraj Chopra went to a place so rarefied the air he breathes can only be found on Everest. The men's hockey team jumped past significant obstacles to return from Paris with another fine bronze. Vinesh Phogat beat the wrestler who never loses in Paris en route to a frankly thrilling ride in Paris before the heart-ache a few hours later. At long last, the men's cricket team married tenacity and skills to end a 11-year ICC title drought. Staying in cricket, Jasprit Bumrah had the sort of year that should have needed a separate subscription package to watch it. Seeing him was like being in the presence of divinity, ethereal.
Frankly, though, all those accomplishments have been left in the shade thanks to the miracle workers across 64 squares. 2024, in time, will be remembered as the year when India's elite chess players ascended a higher plane. There were several warning shots in 2022 and 2023 but they are no longer the future. The future is here and it promises to be filled with trinkets and gongs of all shapes and sizes.
Just before the curtains came down on 2023, D Gukesh belatedly advanced to the Candidates. With the curtains just about to close on this year, Koneru Humpy, whose experience alone is greater than Gukesh's age, was crowned as the women's world rapid champion in New York.
In the interim, Indian chess only had peaks. From Chennai to Singapore and Budapest to Toronto, the only constant was history rewritten multiple times across the year. Arjun Erigaisi breached 2800. Gukesh became world champion. Both teams won barely believable gold at the Olympiad in Budapest in September.
Aravindh Chithambaram, one of the OG wunderkinds, triumphed at the Chennai Grand Masters event in November... India's annus mirabilis in chess just kept on giving.
To paraphrase IM Venkat Saravanan, there has indeed never been a time like this in Indian chess. "What has happened in India in the last 10 years has been amazing," he says. "There has definitely not been a time like this."
There's a reason why the likes of Saravanan feel this way. It's not just because of the medals and the gongs, they of course help. But there's something greater at play. India's depth. Forget the fact that India's ceiling right now is sky high. Their floor is also so high it might well be the ceiling of some of the bigger chess nations.
A lot of factors have contributed to this holistic growth. Here's Sandeep Singhal, who played a big role in setting up the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA) just after the pandemic began. "Serendipity," is the word he used to describe the Academy he has been at since its inception. That's true. When Singhal and Viswanathan Anand had a conversation about doing something for chess, they didn't budget for a world champion to emerge from their stable in under five years.
"It was a very chance encounter with Anand," he said. "I have always wondered why Indian athletes at the junior level are world beaters but the transition to seniors is harder and they tend to slip. Largely because the quality of inputs at that level becomes less than global standards."
So an ecosystem was put in place where Indian chess players would remain the gold standard even at the senior level. WestBridge started sponsoring Gukesh and R Vaishali in 2023. "We signed him for the next five years, we weren't expecting anything... Gukesh was a promising 17-year-old. We wanted to work with him and give him our inputs." Around the same time, Grzegorz Gajewski came on board to become Gukesh's primary second. "We gave him resources that were needed at this level. The rest... brilliance of Gukesh and an idea whose time has come. It happened much more quickly than we imagined."
WACA has blossomed into a finishing school of sorts and it helps that Anand is hands on. The five-time world champion's job description includes scouting the next Gukesh. "We don't have to run a structured process," Singhal said. "Anand is mentor, he's also an active player. He has his eyes on the field. If there is someone in that field that starts to look like breaking through, they very quickly come on the radar." As WACA's reputation has continued to grow, these days players want in. "Pretty much all the top players, they reach out themselves. The network effect has seen to that."
That, however, is just one side of the coin. Luckily, the other side of the coin is also an incentive. Here's RB Ramesh, the super coach who has developed the likes of Vaishali and R Praggnanandhaa.
"Back in the day," he told this daily, "if you became an IM, you used to get jobs in banks and railways. If you have to be good, it came at the cost of education as you are not going to school every day. If you didn't succeed as a player, futures were a question mark. We had public sector establishments giving jobs but they were low paying. Then came the oil sector. It gave chess players some sort of security. That era is over. These days, players aren't looking for jobs, they are looking to become professionals as they want to make a living by playing the game. And that's possible because new avenues have opened up. Organisers, streamers, influencers, writing books, trainers...
"And the players coming through the system believe they can not only challenge the best but be the best."
In 2024, India's leading players proved that point many times over.