SINGAPORE: Starting Monday, young GM has the chance to make history and take Indian chess to new heights when he begins his quest for the world title against Ding Liren.
On November 23, 2014, Viswanathan Anand, the owner of five world titles, tried for one final time. But the young world champion, Magnus Carlsen, kept the door shut. In the Russian resort town of Sochi, the Norwegian, playing with white, took an unassailable lead to signal the end of Anand's challenge.
As Anand watched on, Carlsen celebrated. 6.5-4.5.
Since then, Carlsen and others have battled to be in the winner's circle, to win chess's ultimate honor the World Championship.
Ten years and a few days later, an Indian will again have the chance to script history when the latest edition of the World Championship commences in Singapore on Monday.
For somebody who has already rewritten some records, D. Gukesh, still only 18, has the opportunity to walk on water and reach a place where no other chess player in history has ventured: to become the youngest world champion. Can the youngest Candidate in history do it?
If Anand's first world title in 2000 was India's own moon landing event, then as long as Gukesh can emulate 'my inspiration,' it will be India formally opening a colony of its own a modern chess superpower rubber-stamping its dominance across 64 squares.
How did a country, recognized as the founding father of one of the first versions of chess, get here? The short answer? A perfect storm meant the road to Monday had been in the making for at least the last decade. The long answer? Here's Srinath Narayanan's take, the player-turned-coach who recently played a big role in the Open team winning gold at the Olympiad in Hungary. "It has been building up for a very long time," he tells this daily. "What has happened in the last 24 months started 10-12 years ago when all these kids were growing up. A generation of talented prodigies growing up and getting good guidance along the way. I think a number of things came together. Now, we are here."
It all began when Anand won his first title in 2000. Young parents suddenly saw chess as a viable career option. If nothing else, they saw the game as a 'very intellectual one' and 'very safe to play.' So, they encouraged their kids to play the game, at least at the recreational level. That sentiment has been more prevalent in South India.
GM Narayanan explains: "In general, having a good intellect is very well respected in this region. Chess, being primarily an intellectual sport, commands a lot of respect, so parents are very happy for their kids to have a hobby like chess compared to a more physical sport."
That sort of attitude towards chess almost turned reverential post-Anand's heroics. "I think we are all Anand's kids in that way because, quite simply, a lot of us even came to know that chess existed because of seeing Anand," Narayanan says. "Having grown up with a role model like that... it plays an important role in instilling that self-belief that you can do it. For us, Vishy is that figure. He certainly is one of the roots of why Indian chess is where it is."
If Anand was the first step in the process, an outlier, a dot on the edge of a plotline, what has happened since has largely been organic. RB Ramesh, who put his cricket bat in the loft as a kid after watching Anand, traces the last 10 years. "It didn't happen overnight," Ramesh, who continues to play a big role in polishing the likes of R. Praggnanandhaa and R. Vaishali, tells this masthead. "There has been a gradual evolution. 2014 was an important year for India as we won age-group medals at the world level. That was an important turning point because we now knew that India had a young chess-playing population and they were doing very well."
If 2014 was Ground Zero for this particular generation of wunderkinds, it was sandwiched by two developments. Narayanan captures what happened to the generation that immediately followed Anand. "It's about previous generations being inspired after watching Vishy on TV," the 30-year-old says. "He played at the Worlds in 1995 (against Garry Kasparov in New York), people saw that. He became a household name. I think it was that generation taking up chess and passing on the skills to the next generations. Things started multiplying from there onwards. I think the multiplier effect was not directly Vishy starting to play chess and the current generation of kids being inspired but inspiring that first generation and so on."
Ramesh, part of that first generation, takes the story forward. "This generation (Arjun Erigaisi, Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa) are believing in themselves," he says. "They believe they can be the best; that's the main difference. The earlier generation had doubts because of various constraints, including a lack of training. As things started getting better, each generation became better than the previous one."
Crucially, a generation of GMs and IMs wanted to become coaches and trainers. Ramesh, Vishnu Prasanna, Vishal Sareen, Swayams Mishra, Abhijit Kunte, Narayanan... you get the drift. This, in essence, is the link between Anand and the tyros currently running amok across the chessboard in different parts of the world.
"This is the best crop India has ever had," Ramesh says.
Golden generations are not just defined by what they won. They are also defined by what they failed to win. Gukesh, Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa & Co have already filled their boots with multiple team medals in important events. They have already created history.
Now, Gukesh has the chance to complete the first full circle for this generation: Global individual gold.