it is true that chess does not incite the excitements of a cricket or soccer campaign. those are pseudo physical invasions and defences ie versions of modern shadow warfare inlieu of real blood and guts.
i do know of only one country of modern era which eulogized its chess champions. a la par with its nobel laureates.
it was the old soviet union. in the 1950s, 60 the ussr dominated the chess world. it was a serious intellectual domain, bereft of glamour, but also of arrogance or pride. just sheer crude use of brainpower to crush an opponent.
it was rumoured, that chess players were commandeered by the soviet army to plan campaigns against the germans during the world war II. for it is only them, who could play out several scenarios and predict outcome. remember, this was pre-computers era :flypig:
the soviet domination came to an abrupt halt with the rise of that eccentric jewish american, bobby fisher. his eccentricities included refusal to play on jewish shabbath (saturdays i think), and so games have to be scheduled around that.
bobby fisher beat the russians repeatedly and broke a spell, that the soviets never recovered. for them the glory would lie in the immediate past of mikhail botvinik, mikhail stahl, kasparov et al..and all of them jews, the only exception being petrossian.
on a mylapore level, there was a chess movement pioneered by ramani press. this was during the 60s. ramani press was run by a brahmin, and was located next to the hindu permanent fund mada veedhi (same street as rajaji seeval store, which was owned by a tanjore muslim).
once the treadles were idled at sundown, a few tables were spread on the platform of the mada veedhi, and young, eager, poonul clad, dhoti clad, banian clad brahmin boys would play chess. or were initated into chess. this was serious chess.
the boys came from the neighbourhood, and some as far as vadagur selva vinayagar street on one side, and mandaveli on the other. ramani press graduated some ranking south indian players of rank.
one of them is my friend kailas, who i have seen, challenge 10 different players at a time in my university, blind folded, and whacked each one of them!!
i apologize, that i do not remember the name, but there was a muslim youth from madurai, who was a chess prodigy. unfortunately, a prodigy needs to be nurtured and developed. i guess not much hope of that in india. during the 80s, 90s.
i hope one day anand writes his autobiography and shares some insights as to what was the driving force to his success. i do discount his brahmn heritage here, for that would go contrary to my deep held faith in inclusiveness.
.. and there are plenty of russians, armenians, americans, jews, englishmen who have excelled in chess. all blue blooded in their own right. interestingly no germans come to my mind (!)
i think chess is a sport of the sedate, armchair intelligentsia, with an overwhelming curiosity to plan victory campaigns against a perceived superior enemy. the indian defence ministry would do well to nurture many many chess player. n'est pas?
