Thursday, June 21, 2012

64 Squares


Detractors.

I don’t know what the deal is with detractors, but suddenly they seem to be everywhere. Of course, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, so there’s nothing wrong with some good old fashioned detracting. Take, for example, the government – now that’s an entity that’s worthy of a whole lot of detractors – in fact being a detractor for the government could be a full-time job in itself. Come to think of it, such a job already exists – the opposition. Or for that matter, the BCCI or Akshay Kumar – again prime candidates fully deserving of all the detraction that comes their way – and some more.

When it comes to sports, though, it seems that the matter of detractors has gone one step too far. Take for example, the time when Ben Hilfenhaus took four wickets in an IPL match. Suddenly the media was crowing about how Hilfenhaus had silenced his detractors with his performance. Seriously? Here is a bowler who’d made a splendid comeback to the Australian team by bullying the Indian batting line up in a manner I’d last encountered back in the childhood days watching that bulldog from Tom & Jerry who’d made it a habit to screw Tom’s happiness every episode he featured in. Since then he’s cemented his position in an Australian team that’s teeming with fast bowlers. Who are these detractors? And then there was the time when David Warner scored a century in his second IPL match this season – again the media smugly told everyone that he’d now silenced his detractors. This for a man who’s not only an established force in T20 cricket, but had of late started carrying that destructive ability into ODIs and Test cricket as well? Again – who are these detractors?

What really took the cake (along with the icing and the candles!), though, was when Viswanathan Anand held his world championship crown in the recent title battle. Yes – you guessed it right – even the defending world chess champion has his share of detractors! And it isn’t that he merely has detractors – according to the papers he’s been trash-talked, ridiculed and written off (yes, chess is more dramatic than you thought – more on that later)! Never mind that he’d already defended his crown a couple of times already, and was still in the top bracket of chess players. What was even more puzzling for me, though, was the mention of a chess mafia – it seems that Anand had given a fitting reply to the chess mafia with this victory of his.

Chess Mafia.

What on earth could a chess mafia possibly be?

Think about it – could you EVER have thought that chess was the sort of occupation that could have a mafia? Don’t get me wrong – increasingly the mafia has been infiltrating new territory where they may not have earlier been – but even then, you’d think there’s only so much they could infiltrate. Here’s a list of industries/professions that lend themselves to the creation of a mafia – where you wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow if a mafia was mentioned in connection to them:
  1. Real Estate / Construction
  2. Drugs
  3. Weapons
  4. Showbiz
  5. Gambling
  6. Human trafficking
  7. Anything involving Lalit Modi
Here, on the other hand is another list of industries / professions that do not lend themselves to the creation of a mafia – where you cannot, in your wildest dreams, imagine the presence of a mafia:
  1. Astrophysics
  2. Chess
  3. Market Research
  4. Paramedics
  5. Photographers
  6. Florists
  7. Anything involving Mother Teresa
If you’re not convinced, try this exercise - take a sentence you would regularly use in connection with the mafia – “3 people were killed and 5 injured in a deadly shoot-out involving the X mafia and the Y mafia. All the casualties belonged to the X mafia as the Y mafia delivered a brutal retaliation to the earlier kidnapping of one of their key members by the X mafia” Try replacing X and Y with any of the words from the first list and you’ll see that it makes for a perfectly plausible newspaper piece – while using any words from the second list just sounds plain ridiculous.

So what could the chess mafia be? This is a question that raises interesting possibilities – here are some classified ads with possible explanations on what the chess mafia actually does:

If you’re now thinking “Maybe chess isn’t all that boring these days after all – what with all the off-board drama that surrounds the game” – you’re in for a surprise – it used to be even more interesting during the Cold War era. At first it was the Americans and the Russians. Yes, it wasn’t just space exploration and the arms race that they were trying to outdo each other in – they were also devoting considerable energy to go one up over each other at Chess. Which is why Bobby Fischer was hailed as a hero when he beat the Russians at chess. Unfortunately for the Americans, he then simply vanished and they pretty much gave up on chess after that – leaving it all to the Russians. This brings us to Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov, and their rather insane world championship match of 1984-85.

At that point, Karpov was the reigning world champion and the darling of the Soviet establishment – Kasparov, 12 years his junior, was seen as the rebellious upstart – someone who wanted the established order to change in favour of a new Russia. Thus, the match had huge political ramifications – it wasn’t just about the chess – it was billed as the ultimate clash that could well decide which Russia emerges stronger. The chess, though, did not live up to its titanic billing at first – within 9 matches, Karpov was up 4-0 – and well on the way to an easy victory, given that the first person to 6 wins (with no points for a draw) would be declared the winner. That’s when things got exciting. Or tediously boring, depending on the way you look at it.

It’s a bit like the Popeye cartoon – at first Bluto kicks the living shit out of Popeye – thrashing him left, right and centre. And then suddenly Popeye gets hold of his spinach can and the tables are turned – now he’s flinging Bluto from one side to the other and beating him black and blue. Except that this whole thing happened in extreme, ultra-slow motion – over a 5 month period. After getting thrashed, Kasparov decided that he was in no position to beat Karpov the way he was playing. So he figured – let me just keep drawing matches until it bores everyone and life becomes a living nightmare for Karpov. For five months this went on – they played about 40-odd matches – Kasparov accidentally winning one at some point, Karpov winning one at another point – and the rest were all draws.

By now, Karpov didn’t know how on earth he would deal with this – he’d lost 10 kgs due to stress – how much longer would this go on? Questions pertaining to existential angst had started gnawing away at his very core. Kasparov may be a madman who’s perfectly happy to play chess for the rest of his life – but is this what Karpov really wanted from life? Wasn’t there so much more he could’ve done in life the last 5 months instead of playing chess? Especially now that it was almost summer? Was he trapped in the middle of a dystopian movie about hell, where he would be forced to spend the rest of eternity playing chess matches against Kasparov?

This was it – the spinach intake had finally been completed – and Kasparov was ready to strike. The next three games – all won by Kasparov! Karpov was like Bluto – utterly defeated and on the verge of collapse – when the Soviet authorities called off the match citing health concerns for the players. Of course, the matches themselves may have been boring, but for sheer overall drama, chess can be right up there with the other sports.

And the best part – it has detractors too!

10 comments:

ratneshwar said...

Too Good Man...The best amongst your last few blogs!! You have literally butchered your detractors with this one. Man...the classifieds are insanely funny!!

Nuts said...

Yabba Dabba Doo!

I totally second Ratneshwar's comment. You just silenced your fictitious detractors with this one post.

And that list of occupations that can't possibly lend themselves to mafiadom should include software programming! Vito Corleone dealing with IT coders is not conceivable right?

tania said...

Possibly also the influence of the game of chess being used as a code/metaphor or other story telling techniques in movies, the part about always being one step ahead of enemy etc.Eg ,it's significance of chess in movie tinker tailor soldier spy .But no, all that still dosnt justify chess mafia?????the detractors often have tendency to use phrases they may feel is more glamorous.
Your classifieds are hillarious !!!! And well ,have always been repeating myself on this- a very good read.

Sandee B said...

Simply awesome first of all boss u never had detractors at least I knew of when it came to sarcasm... But your classified writings really an absolute gem.... Typical style u have keep it coming..... Regarding the chess mafia.....aaaaa... Trust me in a country like India and where mayawati not mamata really supposed leaders of state even THAT is possible...I won't rule it out..Sandee

Orgho said...

Ronald - thanks dude! Altho I dont think I'm big enough to have detractors, so it wasn't like I was trying to butcher anyone :)

Orgho said...

Keerti - Thank you! Hehehehehh...software programming mafia - Vito Corleone undertaking hits in exchange for lines of code - sounds like the plot of an interesting sci-fi movie! :)

Orgho said...

Kid - Yes, chess is a pretty fascinating metaphor when it comes to all those cat-n-mouse suspense-type movies! And yea, thanks for the praise! :)

Orgho said...

Sandee - thanks dude! Perhaps you shud start the re-insurance mafia ;)

Subarna said...

Wow. Had no idea you knew so much chess history. Although, chess mafia sounds absolutely absurd (I didn't even know the existence of this phrase), the possibility of its existence can't really be ruled out. After all, strategy and mafiadom go hand-in-hand. You never know what goes on under the surface of this boring, geeky game. I agree with everyone on the classifieds section..absolutely hilarious. Wonder whose phone number you used! What if it really belongs to some mafia? :)

Orgho said...

Thanks Cho! Heheheheheh...yes, when I put the number I did wonder whose number it actually might be :) As for the chess hitory...well, u know me and my predilection for coming across arbit but interesting bits of information every now and then which sometimes make their way on to a blog!