India is extremely lucky to have someone like Vishwanathan Anand Sir for a citizen.
First, he put the country on the map by becoming the world champion himself, beating legends like Kremnik and Gelfand, while also giving serious competition to Gary Kasparov (perhaps the greatest of all time). And then, as if that wasn’t enough, he went on to play a critical role in ushering the next generation of players to take the flag forward with his WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA). What a journey.
For all practical purposes, for Indians born in the 90s (like me), Chess meant Vishwananath Anand. He made the game “cool” for us. Finally, we had something to aspire for in the world of sports (outside Cricket, of course. Which, back then, barely 12 countries in the world played seriously). There was a global sport where we had an “undisputed world champion”. It was such a feeling. There was nothing like it.
Being quite a backward country as far as sporting history is concerned, I remember us wishing Chess was a part of Olympics, just because if that ever happened, “ek Gold Medal to pakka hai Vishwanathan Anand Sir ka”. Whenever my brother and I used to play Chess (and we played a lot), we tried to act all gentlemanly after winning, stroking our spectacles, shaking hands, as if we were playing the Candidates Tournament. We were just emulating our hero. We wanted to be like him.
I distinctly remember how shytee it felt when Magnus Carlsen dethroned Anand Sir back in 2013. “Fouck, man. Really?”, was a recurrent thought. It felt like “we” had lost the top spot, even though we were at home pulling off the regular mundane stuff, while he was out there frying his brain cells against the freak of nature that was (and is) Magnus Carlsen. The fandom was real. And a "comeback" was needed. Much desperately.
Finally, that comeback has arrived, albeit in a different form. Anand Sir is now a mentor. As Gary Kasparov Sir recently tweeted, "Chess has returned to its cradle, and the era of 'Vishy's children' is truly upon us". How true!
WACA started in 2020, when Mr. Sandeep Singhal from WestBridge Capital approached Anand Sir regarding contributions to Chess. Inspired by the Russian grandmaster Mikhail Botvinnik, who is said to have shaped Chess as a sport in the Soviet Union, Anand Sir developed the program, combining the legacy of Botvinnik with the ideals of the Samford Fellowship (which has supported promising players in the US for decades).
In late 2020, at the height of the pandemic, WACA began as a fully online academy. And Anand Sir, the co-founder alongside Mr. Singhal, rolled out the academy's first cohort with prodigies such as R Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, Raunak Sadhwani, and of course - D. Gukesh. Today, around 17 young players utilize WACA's resources, many of whom are breaking new ground as we speak.
Started with about ₹25 Cr, WACA has arrived, and so has Vishwanathan Anand Sir. In his second avtaar. This time, a Guru. We couldn't have been luckier.
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