“Life is like a game of Chess, changing with each move” . The Chinese always come up with wonderful quotes.
The year was 1998 .My summer break from school was going on. As any Indian kid would, I played cricket all day and in the afternoon me and my friend “Kusugal” played chess. Our rivalry was no less than that of the ‘Kasparov – Karpov’ one. Or at least we played in the same zeal to defeat each other. We often took our rivalry onto the cricket field leading to skirmishes. I was a better cricketer than he was, so I would ensure every defeat on the chess board would be avenged by my bat.
One afternoon, as we settled to play our favorite board game, our mutual and close friend “Gowda” suggested that we guys play against a neighborhood boy called “Gunnu“. This Gunnu was an irritating character, or at least, I felt so. He was a few years younger than us. His bowling/throwing action was the weirdest I have ever faced. It was an amalgamation of a Kangaroo’s jump and Paul Adams trying to bowl underarm with his normal action.
He would rarely come and play cricket with us. But whenever he did, I would make him bowl all day without getting out. He would finally fake injury and go home depressed. I was always delighted in making him toil. So when Gowda told me Gunnu wanted to play chess, I was eager. We started; he took out a pen and a paper to jot down stuff. I thought he was crazy!
Gowda was grinning as we played a few moves. Kusugal looked on interested. Gunnu took a long time between moves. He would shake his head, bite his nails, scribble something in the paper and calculate something as if he was solving Fermat’s last theorem. Gowda was giggling now, I laughed along with him.
A few moves down the lane, my laughter died. All of a sudden, the culmination of Gunnu’s calculations had resulted in me being a few moves away from defeat. I knew it was inevitable. Kusugal said “It’s lunch time” and slipped away.
“Check Mate!“, Gunnu deliriously declared. He had this Buddha look of absolute nirvana on his face. Gowda was still giggling.
My ego made me challenge Gunnu for another game. I lost even more badly. And Another Game, a worse loss.
Gunnu had wiped off all his humiliation on the cricket field. He had put me in place. A nice afternoon had turned into an embarrassing situation for me. Gunnu went back home after thanking me for the nice games. He had this twinkle in his eye of a superior intellectual. The eternal brain vs. brawn fight.
Gowda was laughing by now. As I put the chess pawns back into the cover, I asked him as to why he was laughing so much. Gowda was a much better friend of mine than he was of Gunnu’s. He then said something that made me want to kill him.
“Gunnu is a National Under-14 champion”. I just looked up to Gowda; he laughed and started running from me. I did not want to chase him.
Me and Kusugal never played chess and Gunnu never played cricket with us, again. I guess he wanted to finish on a high.
The Russian’s have a better proverb than the Chinese – “In life, unlike chess, the game continues after Checkmate“.
The ‘Gowda Saga’ Continues – Why Figure Joined Karate !
Nice,simple & an intresting story…it just reminded me of my childhood days…just checkmated.
Simply Superb!!!
Simple…Nice…
The russian was Isaac Asimov i suppose!!
nice anecdote.. i can well imagine all the characters in here
nice story….do u know which country was the first where chess was played?
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