The Hindu : Sport / Chess : India's future looks bright: Anand

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Monday, Oct 09, 2006
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India's future looks bright: Anand

Sports Reporter

Chennai: For a man whose sport permits eccentricity as a professional hazard, Viswanathan Anand's humility and straightforwardness are striking.

Speaking to The Hindu after playing chess with 20 enthusiasts (20 more were to follow) at the programme `Vishy versus Everybody' to raise funds for `Vidya Sagar', an NGO working for the differently abled, he was clear and articulate, as always.

The World Championship fiasco has not gone down too well with the 36-year-old (Veselin Topolov accused Vladimir Kramnik of taking too many bathroom breaks, suggesting that he was cheating). "It's great entertainment, no doubt. But there is no place for such things in sport. He (Kramnik) was accused not of something he actually did, but something he could have done, and losing a game was extremely unfair to Kramnik. To say that it could have been handled better would actually be putting it mildly. The event is tainted now," he said.

On the future of re-unification, he added that the validity of the event was in doubt now. "The Mexico Championship will be the legitimate World championship. Most of the top players play there," he said, adding that the hunger to win the World Championship had barely diminished. "It's very much there."

He is pretty optimistic about the future of the game in India. "The likes of Parimarajan Negi, Tania Sachdev and others show good promise. There is a lot of talent," he said. On India's chances at the Doha Asiad, he felt that it was "pretty good."

A game like chess, that isn't blessed with an obvious visual appeal, will require an out-of-the-box line of thinking to promote itself.

"The internet is spreading the game in a big way. Thousands of people follow the game online. It is a growing medium to promote chess worldwide. But as far as the others (media) go, we have to keep talking to them about the sport, in order to promote it" he said.

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