Why Viswanathan Anand is Godfather to India’s golden generation like Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa

But rather than plotting their next phase of world domination of the 64 squares, some of India’s top grandmasters were at Anand’s house for a rare moment of relaxed bonhomie. And a traditional South Indian breakfast. There was unchecked mirth in the air and plenty of games, none of them over a chessboard.

At one point, there were carefully-curated traditional rituals for Vidit and his fiance Dr Nidhi Kataria, with the ceremony officiated by Anand’s wife and manager, Aruna.

There were games for chess couples and even a scavenger hunt for missing chess pieces around the house for Vidit and Nidhi. To top it all, Anand, Gukesh, Pragg, Vidit and Srinath ended up recreating the viral Manasilayo dance video of Gukesh.

This raucous afternoon at the Anand household refreshes memories of another grand breakfast from January 2024, where Anand and Aruna had again hosted the Indian chess fraternity at their home.

Last year, Anand had also invited all of India’s Candidates qualifiers — Gukesh, Pragg, Vaishali, Humpy Koneru with only Vidit missing — for a meal at their home before they flew out for Toronto.

Along the lines of Botvinnik School

Many of today’s current generation of Indian stars like Gukesh, Pragg, Vaishali have all benefited from being part of Anand’s academy, (Westbridge Anand Chess Academy or WACA) which is modelled on the Botvinnik Chess School that sharpened the minds of world champions like Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik.

At WACA, Anand enlisted elite GMs like Poland’s Grzegorz Gajewski (for opening theories), Sandipan Chanda (mid-game prep), Russia’s Artur Yusupov (endgame mastery) and Israeli legend Boris Gelfand to train the next crop of Indian stars.

The academy has also helped players like Gukesh shoulder the burden of bills when requirements arose.

Many careers from this present generation of players have benefitted from Anand’s direct inputs: he suggested in late 2023 that Gukesh should hire Gajewski as a full-time trainer, while Vaishali was nudged in the direction of working with Chanda. Both Gajewski and Chanda have been in Anand’s team during his world championship battles besides working for WACA.

Anand has also been at hand trying to offer a balm at Gukesh’s most bruising defeats. After Gukesh lost in the final round at the 2022 Olympiad in Chennai, which cost India a gold medal, Anand tried to cheer up Gukesh, spending almost two hours chatting with the teenager and then playing table tennis with him for good measure.

At the recent World Championship, after Gukesh had lost the first game to Ding Liren, Anand appeared in the elevator while the wound was still fresh in the 18-year-old’s mind. “I had 11 games. You have 13,” Anand told Gukesh, reminding him that in the 2010 world championship, Anand had lost the first game to Veselin Topalov but had still won the crown.

On the face of it, chess is a largely solitary pursuit. You live plenty of your life out of a suitcase, travelling with just one chaperone, be it a trainer, a parent or a spouse. There are no teammates to hang out with at the end of a hard day’s play.

It’s usually every player for himself.

Then comes Anand, who’s eased up on his playing commitments in recent years and has taken it upon himself to be the Godfather of India’s golden generation of chess. He doesn’t need to do it. The advice, the career nudges, the breakfasts, the HR-like dedication to annual team-building activities at his home.

No one will begrudge Anand if he were to just tend to his duties as a FIDE Deputy President. He could just be a global brand ambassador for chess, making select appearances whenever convenient. The five-time world champion’s stature on the Mount Rushmore of chess was already secured many decades ago.

But Anand seems to have taken it upon himself to be Indian chess’ Godfather.

Thanks to his initiative, Indian chess is finding reasons to celebrate and come together as a flock. It’s a sentiment that’s rare in chess.

Last year, American star Hikaru Nakamura had told The Indian Express why he had stopped playing for Team USA at events like Olympiads for the past six years.

“I played in seven Chess Olympiads from 2006 and 2018 for the USA. In the early years there was a lot of team spirit and chemistry. But in the later Olympiads, from 2014 onwards, the Olympiads started to feel very much like an individualised event for us on the US team. Many of us were top 10 players. So everybody was very serious. Everybody did their own thing. There wasn’t any camaraderie. It’s one of the reasons why I stopped playing in the Olympiad,” Nakamura said.

This is not to imply that Indian chess players don’t see each other as rivals. Gukesh had told The Indian Express a few months back in an interview the Indian prodigies were like “frenemies”.

But like true Vishy’s disciples, there is a balance between professional envy and respect.

Many decades ago, when Anand used to be the lone Indian trailblazer taking on the might of the Soviet Union’s state-sponsored chess juggernaut, he would be mocked by his rivals, who tried to dismiss him by saying that he was too much of a nice guy. As if to imply that his politeness would get in the way of his ruthlessness on the board.

It’s only now that Anand’s response to that critique is becoming apparent: an army of nice-guys coming to take over the sport.