The Last Gambit

  THE LAST GAMBIT

  Om Swami is a mystic who lives in the Himalayan foothills. Prior to renunciation, he founded and ran a multi-million dollar software company with offices across the world. He is also the author of six bestselling books including If Truth be Told: A Monk’s Memoir, The Wellness Sense, When All Is Not Well and Kundalini: An Untold Story.

  His blog on spirituality, www.omswami.com, is read by millions all over the world.

  Published in India by HarperCollins Publishers India Ltd.

  Worldwide publishing rights: Black Lotus Press

  Copyright © Om Swami 2017

  P-ISBN: 978-93-5264-092-8

  E-ISBN: 978-93-5264-093-5

  Om Swami asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  www.omswami.com

  The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  In a country where cricket is a religion, this book is dedicated to the unsung heroes of our nation who have brought us glory by silently playing chess with the Indian flag on their desks. Their quiet personalities cloak thousands of hours of practice – and often hardships – like embers mask fire.

  When they win world championships and prestigious contests, we don’t run out on to the streets bursting crackers. Hundreds of shutterbugs don’t go into a tizzy trying to capture them in action. These geniuses don’t trend on Twitter, there is no grand public reception or fanfare in their honour. Instead, they get down at the airport, collect their own luggage, go home unnoticed and practise more chess.

  This book is a salute to these brilliant minds of our nation.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1: THE MAGIC PILL

  2: ON BOARD, OFF BOARD

  3: A PAPER BOAT

  4: SUCCESS BY DESIGN

  5: PLENTY OF FISH

  6: THE SOUL OF CHESS

  7: WHEN MASTER CALLS

  8: MY MOJO

  9: MY BEST MOVE

  10: THE RIGHT TO DREAM

  11: THE CHESS MISSILE

  12: THE LOST QUEEN

  13: PAWNED

  14: KNITTING WITH ANDREI

  15: MOVE YOUR FOOT SOLIDER

  THE MAGIC PILL

  I DON’T KNOW why, but it’s really irritating when people get all philosophical and tell me that life is like chess. Yeah, right. How can you even compare the two? For one thing, chess has rules. It is an elegant work of art, whereas life, life is a freaking hammer. Even if it falls elegantly, it crushes you.

  In chess, you know exactly when the flag is going down. You can get extra time. You can play games and outmanoeuvre your opponent. But life sees through your tricks. It just comes and slaps you out of your illusions. There is no warning, no indication. Forget extra time.

  The year was 1983 and I had just turned fourteen. Not sure if you think it’s important, but India had also won its first ever cricket World Cup – a fact not relevant to me any more than the size of a dinosaur’s egg.

  ‘Paidal chalao, move your foot soldier,’ he remarked.

  We burst out laughing, for he had called a pawn a foot soldier. What kind of person calls a pawn a foot-soldier? Was this crude old man really playing in our tournament or was he just a spectator? We squeezed some more laughs out of his lingo and the way he was dressed: plain and uncle-ji like.

  He showed no reaction though. The bulging eyes behind his big glasses were fixed on the chessboard. This was a casual game among two amateurs during the break of an open chess tournament, open to players of all ages. I couldn’t be sure if he was playing the tournament though for, right now, he was simply a spectator like the rest of us.

  Each time the old goose – who looked as out of place in our tournament as a faded chess piece among shiny new ones – referred to any piece in Hindi, we guffawed. Some of us even provoked him to speak, to suggest a move. But he remained annoyingly indifferent to our laughter and comments.

  The first thing that came to my mind when I saw his face was chai-patti. After they had been boiled and sieved, that is. Maybe a bit darker, actually. He was tall and slim, and wore a hand-knit woollen jumper which was a little faded and looked every bit as old as him.

  The bell rang for the fourth round. It was a round-robin tournament of eleven games, of which I had won the previous two out of three games.

  I opened the fourth game carefully. Twenty moves later, my position was pretty solid and I was one pawn up. I launched the offence with confidence, but my plan backfired when my opponent planted his knight in a U-pawn chain in the centre. Fifteen moves later, I had nothing to boast about my position. With two pawns down, bishops exchanged and other pieces on the defence, he had ramrodded me out of a good game with his clever play and sheer patience.

  While I calculated at lightning speed, he would just sit there and think and think and think, like Rodin’s ‘Thinker’. I didn’t know if I was exasperated because I didn’t have his patience or he my speed. Either way, due to minor errors, a perfectly fine game slipped out of my hand.

  Just then, the old man appeared on the scene and stood there, observing my game like my grandmother watching her poppadoms frying in the pan. Tournament rules allowed strangers to observe, provided they didn’t talk to or prompt players in any way. Though he didn’t speak, the old man’s silent presence ushered in a wave of embarrassment. Nothing on the chessboard was in my favour.

  My opponent had been staring at the board for the last ten minutes.

  If he makes any mistake, O Hanuman, I’ll go to your temple on Tuesday and offer you modaks. I’ll even feed the monkeys in the zoo. Anything to win your favour, I prayed silently.

  I prayed that my opponent miscalculates so I could walk away with a point. But Hanuman did not hear me.

  My opponent failed to capitalize too. The game wore on for a little while and then went for a draw. We shook hands. I slammed my chess set shut and stuffed the wooden losers in my flabby bag.

  Scoring half a point each, we approached the bench to report the result.

  ‘You should have won,’ the old fella said, walking up behind me.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ I don’t think I asked for your advice.

  ‘Then why didn’t you?’ ‘Excuse me?’ I said curtly.

  ‘Yes, I’m asking,’ he said gravely, ‘if you knew then why didn’t

  you win?’

  His emphasis on didn’t ticked me off.

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ I said, and briskly walked the other way.

  ‘It is yours, though,’ he hollered from behind.

  How I wanted to turn around and sock him with my board for rubbing it in. I took a few steps, but something within – to date I don’t know what – made me turn around. He was still standing there, with a mocking smile that made me angrier. At one level I wished that he would disappear, but somewhere, deep down, I was grateful for his presence.

  ‘Tame your impatience if you are serious about winning,’ he said.

  I wanted to shout at him, call him names, but instead replied, ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.’ Maybe because he was showing me the mirror, or maybe because I couldn’t make up my mind about his being sincere or sarcastic.

  ‘I know I had a strong attack with the bishops.’ I moved closer. ‘What bishops? They were resting on the table
when I saw you,’

  he said blandly. ‘I’m talking about the rook-and-knight attack.’ ‘Yeah, right. He had his queen staring at my rook. I’m just

  lucky I could even draw.’

  ‘Listen up, kiddo.’ His knobbly fingers held my thin wrist and he dragged me to a nearby table. There was conviction, a firmness to his grip; no force.

  Right in front of my eyes, he reconstructed the exact board position I had when he had emerged on the scene. I was taken aback – I can reconstruct a game all right but no way could I have gone so far back as he had.

  ‘Here, Qg8+ Rg8, Nf7++. There’s your check and mate in two moves. All forced moves. He was trapped behind his own pawns.’

  I stared.

  His hands had moved with remarkable speed on the board, as if he was collecting his poker winnings and not playing chess. There was no clumsiness, no holes – this was a foolproof attack.

  I hate to admit it, but I was humbled. He no longer looked shabby to me. What I saw now was the intelligence which shone on his face, bright and clear.

  ‘Tell me if he had any choice at all? And you think that was the only attack you had?’

  I hadn’t yet got over the first attack he’d coined, and here he was going on about another one. I thought it best to keep quiet rather than cement my position as a clueless ass.

  ‘Pay attention now.’ He quickly moved pieces to draw the original position on the board, pushed two pawns and drew a knight fork, forcing the opponent to give up his queen for a measly knight. ‘You could have had his queen, and two passed pawns.’

  Passed pawns are prized possessions in the end game; they are two pawns, one protecting the other; the opponent captures the one at the back and the one in front starts moving to the end of the board where it can become a queen, bishop, rook or a knight. If unchecked, pawn promotion in the case of passed pawns is nearly unavoidable.

  ‘How do I improve my game?’ I blurted. ‘Why do you play chess?’

  ‘I like this game!’

  ‘You play because you like it?’ There it was again – the mocking tone. ‘You think it’s just a game?’ He shook his head, and mumbled, ‘Huh, game…’

  I liked chess all right, and I practised hard, but I didn’t think it was any more than a game, a pastime, albeit a damn good one. Besides, what more could it be anyway? It’s not like I was a chess prodigy, born into a family of chess champions, slowly inching my way to the top. No one in my family even knew how to play the game. My mother thought I needed to eat more almonds because chess was using up my brain, and my father only supported me because he thought it was better than spending my time running around with the good-for-nothing kids on our street. My sister, Mira, didn’t know how to play, and my brother, Varun, couldn’t care less. If anything, Varun teased me about chess, calling me Munshiji after Munshi Premchand’s Shatranj ke Khiladi.

  There was no one to coach me for miles. There were no grandmasters in my town. Heck, there were only five in the whole country. And even if there were, we could not afford coaching, for I belonged to a simple middle-class family, the type that wore hand-knit sweaters and not readymade ones. We were not the carriers of civilization but the bearers of mediocrity because our outfits had no logos. No Nike, Adidas or Monte Carlo.

  Coaching was for the rich. Mostly. Plus, there was a reason why I was more arrogant than confident: I believed I wasn’t champion material.

  As if reading my mind, he said, ‘Champions are not born, Vasu. They are made. And no one really makes them. Champions make themselves.’

  ‘How do you know my name?’ I asked, startled. ‘Duh! I read it on the pairing sheet outside.’ ‘You think I can be a champion?’

  ‘Do you think you can be one?’ ‘If I have you, then yes.’

  ‘Why me?’

  I didn’t know what to say. As soon as I said it, I knew it to be true. It was as if my heart had a mind of its own, and was doing its own thinking, and had already made its decision.

  ‘My heart says so.’

  The bell echoed through the corridors. It was time for the next round. But I didn’t turn away. Standing in his presence was melting something in me. As if, already, he was silently teaching me, transforming me.

  ‘Will you coach me, please?’ I got up, went to his side of the table and reached out to touch his feet. It felt right.

  He didn’t pull me up. Or stop me. But he was quiet, his eyes a little moist. I’m not sure if that was because of his age or if he was feeling sentimental.

  ‘On two conditions,’ he said. ‘Conditions?’

  ‘Yes. First, you will never dig into my past. Second, I’ll never accompany you to any tournaments.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘Listen, son,’ he said after a brief pause. ‘There is no magic pill. Whatever you want in life, you have to earn it. And remember, chess is not a game, it’s a way of life.’

  ‘I’ll do anything to learn from you.’ ‘Anything?’

  ‘I swear by Bajrang Bali.’

  A faint smile appeared on his face. ‘If chess is the only thing you want in life and if you promise to not leave it in between,’ he spoke solemnly, ‘I’ll make you a grandmaster.’

  Grandmaster. My heart skipped a beat. A surge of energy passed through me. I wanted to jump in the air and touch the sky. I wanted to hug him.

  ‘Sleep over it. Speak to your parents. And if you are ready, I will see you here tomorrow.’

  He got up and walked away with swift, steady steps. His head was lowered, and I got the feeling that he saw the floor like a chessboard.

  Rocking my world, he had left me with a dream.

  Of everything he’d said, one statement kept bouncing against the walls of my mind – champions make themselves. I ran to the pairing sheet since I was already late for my game. Though I went on to win the remaining two games that day, I was distracted. More than winning the tournament, I craved to play with him, to learn from him. His words had set the bird in my chest free. I felt like a caterpillar crawling out of my cocoon to become a butterfly.

  I rode back home in the evening on my girlie ride, my moped. Other kids at school often made fun of me. It bothered me sometimes, but never enough to abandon it. I knew that was all my parents could afford. Today, I didn’t notice the shops, food stalls, people, traffic, nothing. Lost in my own world, I was home before I knew it.

  My father, a government employee, a serious man, was reading a newspaper while Mira and Varun, my elder siblings, were sitting nearby, studying. Father always handed his entire salary to my mother, a homemaker and a very wise woman who managed the finances carefully.

  ‘Oh, Vasu’s home!’ Mother came rushing out of the kitchen. She cupped my face with her hands; they were warm. I was already a little taller than her. Although she would never admit it in front of my siblings, in private she would tell me that I was her favourite.

  ‘Can I ask you a question, dad?’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, not looking up from the newspaper. ‘It’s serious, dad.’

  He lowered the newspaper.

  ‘I’ll be back in a moment. Milk is on the stove.’ Mom went to the kitchen, turned off the stove, and returned in a flash.

  ‘What if I direct all my focus on to chess … to become a grandmaster?’

  ‘What do you mean by all your focus?’

  ‘I mean, I will study, but what if I make chess my priority?’

  His face turned serious. ‘Chess is good, son, but it is not going to pay your bills. There—’

  ‘But it’s my dream, dad,’ I said impatiently.

  ‘Since when? And life doesn’t run on dreams, Vasu,’ he said firmly. ‘Chess is not a career option.’

  It’s not that I disagreed with him. The popular career paths, doctor, engineer, accountant, etc., were safe choices. But I couldn’t get the old man out of my he
ad, neither the word ‘grandmaster’ that he had so casually dropped.

  ‘Studies are important, Vasu,’ mom chipped in.

  ‘I’m not saying I won’t study,’ I said angrily. I needed her by my side. ‘It’s just that I will pursue a less demanding course. Chess is where my heart is. I want to become a grandmaster.’

  ‘But Vasu, beta—’

  ‘Do you even know the price of a litre of milk?’ dad asked, cutting mom off.

  ‘I let you play chess so you get a break from your studies,’ he continued. ‘You guys get everything easy and that’s why you don’t know the value of anything. You think life is all rosy?’

  Oh no, not another lecture!

  He kept that up for another ten minutes, none of which I tuned into, except some sentences here and there. He said something about chess not giving me a livelihood, and that everything was so expensive these days. I think he also brought up how my mother’s softness was doing all the damage. At first I was angry because I knew he would have the last word. But as he kept lecturing, I felt alienated and lonely.

  Some more time passed and he was still going on about how hard he had to work in life, and that I had no clue how competitive the world out there was. I felt helpless. I tried to act strong, but I couldn’t stop my eyes from welling up.

  At this, dad paused for a few seconds and then started again. Finally, mom put a hand on his shoulder and pleaded with him to stop. She wasn’t going to pacify me in front of my father, especially when he was the one scolding me. We all knew strongly he disapproved of such gestures.

  By now, tears were rolling down my eyes, but no one got up to make me feel better. I think my crying melted his heart, but not enough for him to grant me my wish. The middle-class could not afford such luxuries.

  ‘You are only fourteen, Vasu, and you don’t know what’s right for you. This new fascination of yours will disappear in a few days,’ he said, dismissing me. ‘Go, have dinner now.’

  He went back to his newspaper. I stormed into the room I shared with my brother. When mom came in a little later, I did not want to talk to her. She had betrayed me by not supporting me at all. When she asked me to come for dinner, I retorted I was not hungry and sent her away.