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370. Chaturanga to Chess
MS Thej Kumar, Aravind Shastry, Manisha Mohite and Saritha M Reddy with Vijay Mruthyunjaya
Speakers
From boasting of a lone International Master (IM) in Manuel Aaron in 1962, India has come a long way in the world of chess, particularly in the last two-and-half decades of the new Millennium. Today, India has 85 Grandmasters, including three women, 23 Woman Grand Masters, 140 International Masters and 42 Woman International Masters while the list of FIDE masters is growing by the day.
In the top 10 of any category or age group, Indians figure so prominently that they are second only to the US and China in the men’s and women’s section respectively. The double-gold at the 2024 Olympiad and India’s superb performance in the Candidates added to its growing reputation as a superpower.
But if you look from an historic perspective, our champions of today are merely continuing the legacy of a 5,000-year-old tradition which can be traced back to the Indus Valley Civilization when chess (called Chaturanga then) was, among other things, used for war stimulation.
According to legend, Ravan’s wife Mandodari taught him Chaturanga so that he could plan battle strategies. Later, Chaturanga became Chatrang in Persian and Shatranj in Arabic before travelling to Spain and the rest of the western world. In the modern era, chess is looked at in different ways. A gymnasium of the mind. A cerebral tug-of-war.
For India, Anand can be the best reference point to start any debate involving chess. In fact, Indian chess can be neatly divided into Pre-Anand and Post-Anand eras. The Pre-Anand period was nascent with not many players around, no infrastructure to talk about or any support from the government or the private sector. Indian chess style was one of the many variants of the official chess as recognized by the ruling body FIDE. By the time Anand became India’s first Grandmaster in 1987 and triggered the post-Anand era, chess was a rapidly growing sport. Let’s look at some figures. Till the start of the new Millennium, India had just three GMs with Dibyendu Barua (1991) and Pravin Thipsay (1997) following in the footsteps of Anand. The first decade of the new century produced 20 GMs and the next 10 a staggering 44. The present decade has already witnessed 16 GMs to take the tally to 85.
In this episode of BIC Talks, MS Thej Kumar, Aravind Shastry, Manisha Mohite and Saritha M Reddy will be in conversation with Vijay Mruthyunjaya. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in May 2025.
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Speakers
M S Thej Kumar
In September, 2017, Thej Kumar became Karnataka’s first GM (and India’s 50th) at the age of 36, relatively old compared to other teenaged GMs at that time, but remarkably he achieved it without a professional coach and within six months (three IM and three GM norms). As if a mini-celebration, he won the Karnataka State Level Open Rapid Chess Tournament the next year with a perfect score of 9/9. Among his many other achievements, the notable ones are winning the 2013 Indian National B championship and the 2003 National U-25 Championship in India and the 2016 Liffre Open and the 2017 Guingamp Open abroad. His present goal is to become a Super GM.
Aravind Shastry
A top state player at his prime, Aravind Shastry is a four-time Karnataka state champion (2000, 2002, 2003, 2012). Today, he is the go-to-man when it comes to chess at the state and national levels. A seasoned administrator, he has held important positions both at the Karnataka State Chess Association and the All India Chess Federation. He is also a renowned coach and mentor to many young players and was the head coach of the Indian team at the 2018 Asian Youth Championship held in Thailand. He has the rare distinction of participating in the National ‘A’ Championship after a gap of 16 years in 2003.
Manisha Mohite
A former Karnataka woman champion, she has represented India in a few International events with a second-place finish at Singapore International being her best. Today, she is a veteran journalist having written in many leading publications like The Times of India, Deccan Herald and MidDay. Her Sunday column ‘ChessChecks’ was published uninterrupted for about 24 years (from 1997 to 2020) before the Covid pandemic forced it off the pages. She has covered all the World Chess Championships and Grand Slam events Viswanathan Anand featured in from 1998 to 2015. Lately, she was the press officer during the Chess Olympiad, featuring 190 countries, held in Chennai in 2022. In April 2025, she was the Press Officer for the Indian media at the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix held in Pune.
Saritha M Reddy
National Women’s Chess Champion at 15, Saritha Reddy became India’s sixth WIM (Woman International Master) and has represented India at four successive Olympiads (1990, 92, 94 and 96). She has been India’s coach with the team travelling abroad for World Championships in Age Categories. She is also named coach of the Indian team for the Asian Women’s Championship to be held in the UAE from May 6, 2025. She and her brother IM Sudhakar Babu were the first brother-sister duo to represent India at an Olympiad, in 1990 in Yugoslavia, a feat which was emulated by R Praggnanandhaa and his sister R Vaishali in 2022 in Chennai
