Chennai: Five-time World Chess Champion, Viswanathan Anand’s late mother Susheela Viswanathan definitely believed and subscribed to this theory! She was the one who introduced, initiated, and inculcated the love for the 64 squares and the well-organized army moving on those squares.
HE SHARES AN ANECDOTE FROM HIS FIRST OLYMPIAD
When Anand started playing in chess events, she accompanied him and ensured that he stayed focussed on chess.
Anand had an interesting anecdote to share when she accompanied him for his first Chess Olympiad as a 14-year-old at Thessaloniki, Greece in 1984. “I had just earned my international rating almost a year back and was totally overawed by seeing all the top players at the Olympiad.
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Soviet Union then, still was a formidable force without the presence of Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov who were fighting for the World title bout.
In those days access to chess material and games was very limited and the only source was the Chess Informant founded by Aleksander Matanovic and Milivoje Molerovic which published all the top games played in a year in one or two editions.
At that point, I had wished that at least one of my games should be published in the Informant. Once at the venue I remember excitedly pointing out the person in charge of the informant to my mother.
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After I left for my game, my mother went and met the person in charge and mentioned that she would like one of her son’s games to be published in the Informant.
The Gentleman remarked that many players requested for their games to be included but this was the first time that a Mother had come and insisted on her son’s game to be included and who was he to deny”!!
