Chequered Knights!!

This is one continues from where "World Champions of College Cricket" left off!!


(contd.).........and the tall, languid coach (Abhijit ‘Gary’ Kasture) who with his book and pen (didn’t then have his now omnipresent laptop) always had the most accurate statistics and tips at the end of the day’s play.Well I call him Gary not just in relation to the South African of the same name but also the Russian, for besides cricket there was one other passionate sport we played – chess.
     The closer to the exams we got the more time we spent indoors, the more chess we played and on the night before some exams I think we played more chess than we read our books. Two rooms in our hostel were always open for party irrespective of the occassion or of the presence of their owners. One was 90 (that was Amit's and mine) and the other was 75 (Dharmya and Swapnil), and chess we played. Played as if we were addicted to it, we couldn't stop, couldn't walk away, no matter how tired, no matter how important a job we had, no matter if we had an exam the next day - we played.
     Lets first name the addicts – there was the GM (Subir Roy) undisputed King of chess in the college, an eccentric fat guy whose logic though brilliant was always off-centre. Then there was the Mukesh loving, Anil Kapoor fan (Abhijeet Shinde) who would die if ever he was caught doing anything that was the norm. From reading only the most obscure textbooks for his exams to sleeping more often at the dhaba than in his room to never being seen in class, this guy was one specimen. Then there was Gopal "Ashwin" Borkar, the fellow who refused to waste his time playing before the exams. So he sat studying in the same room we were playing in and probably knew every move being made better than anyone else. Gary Kasture, singing Swapnil and myself completed the rest.
     Now let me tell you something about chess – it is not a 2 player game, atleast not when we played it. It was a 6 player (could be more) game always. Even though only 2 people sat at a game at a time, every move was debated, dissected and discussed by everyone and then often changed by majority consensus (Subir had veto powers, I should add). One game lasted for hours and could only be interrupted for a snack from Bhagwanta, who like his name was God when hunger struck at midnight.
     There are many memories that come from these chess marathons, one in particular involves an unfortunate junior (Bagate, I think) who while on an errand had the audacity to say chess was his ‘hobby’ and then looking at Subir felt he could beat him easily in no time. He spent the whole night playing chess and the only thing he beat that night was his head on the wall in regret. There was one game in particular where I think we had 5 queens to his none by the time we beat him, and whenever he asked for a break I think he sat at the window forlornly staring at the ladies’ hostel and laughing out to himself.
     Most of these chess sprees were in room no. 75, for in my room lived the great leveler, the batting genius (Amit Hartalkar) who never played chess but could end any game of chess in a draw. One swell blow when everyone was at the height of their frenzy trying to come up with a miracle move and he would scatter the board with a smile that only he could get away with. Of course we could have set the board up again exactly the way it was but the guy on the losing side of the board would never agree, would he?
     What happened in those exams and what the results were I do not wish to comment upon but it would suffice to say that each one of the people aforementioned are doctors today doing good work somewhere, hoping that they could one more time walk out onto that field or spend an entire night playing chess or just be a bunch of kids with wide eyes and big ideals again!