A Short Indian Summer

I’ve been slack with the blog, and have begun to receive pointed reminders from some of you. Fair call, although at least I have something of an excuse. Despite a sworn vow to never again return to the sub continent, I’ve been in Bangalore and its surrounds for the past month on a glorious summer vacation.

To be fair, the vow was made out of bitterness and pain all the way back in 2007, after my third visit to India for chess. I was playing in the Commonwealth Chess Championships in New Delhi and for the first time suffered a serious case of “Delhi Belly”. During the course of a week, my body lost 10 kilograms (and the snide pundits among you would be quick to point out that I didn’t have that much to begin with). The gruelling schedule of two five-hour games a day didn’t exactly aid the recovery, but in case you’re feeling sorry for me, spare a thought for my poor roommate, Gareth Oliver, given that I monopolised the bathroom for every waking minute we spent in the hotel.

I think my anti-India vow was probably uttered while being literally carried to the board for one of the final games, but I’m glad I didn’t stick to it. My other two trips, way back in 2002 and 2004, were absolutely amazing, and the most recent venture has reinforced my belief that India is truly a magical country. Still, it’ll take a fair bit of convincing to get me back to New Delhi again…

The reason for the trip to Bangalore was a wedding: one of my good friends from my Melbourne college days was to marry his Indian fiancee, and he’d made it very clear that skipping the event wasn’t an option. He currently works in Iraq for the UN, and given his military background, I felt it was a pretty good idea to oblige. To try and rid myself of the memories of half a decade ago, I arrived a few days before the rest of the wedding party to do a bit of exploring.

But it wasn’t as lonely as you might imagine. Before I left, I googled ‘Bangalore Chess’ and sent an email to the Bangalore Chess Academy to see whether there were any club nights or social events while I was there. I got a strange reply from a guy called Vedant: “There’s not really much of a club scene in Bangalore, but I’d love to play a few games against a grandmaster.” Oh brother, I thought, playing some games against one local bunny wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I accepted the offer out of politeness, and good that I did. Vedant is an amazing guy who’s set up his own chess school in his house, run by himself and his wife, trains his very talented children, and is trying to expand the Bangalore chess scene with some junior tournaments. Oh, and on top of that, he’s the strongest player in Bangalore and has played against (and beaten) most of India’s grandmasters. He even took me down in one of our blitz games when my arrogant queen sacrifice backfired. In addition to our love of dubious sacrifices, we found another mutual idiosyncrasy: an addiction to mangoes. The bond was immediately forged.

After blitz, he invited me back to his house where by chance there was something of a family reunion going on, so I was introduced to children, brothers, sisters, their spouses, parents, grandparents and, it seemed, the whole tree. I accepted his seven year old daughter Yukti’s challenge to a game, and she’s really not bad. At some point, though, I had mate in three and decided to ‘graciously’ offer my host’s progeny a draw. “No”, she quickly replied. With the whole clan watching, I offered again, “Are you sure? Because, you know, your king’s not looking so good. Are you sure you don’t want a draw?”

“Nope” immediately came back the reply. “Play!” An impressive attitude, which reminded me of another young and reckless Brisbane kid many decades ago…

 

 

 

 

 

One difference I noticed about Bangalore compared to the other Indian cities I’ve visited is how differently foreigners are treated. For some reason, in Bangalore I and my fellow travellers were considered a novelty item wherever we went. I can’t even count the number of times people asked to take their picture with me – do I look like some Indian Premier League cricket star I’ve never heard of, or something? The only other time I’d encountered this sort of treatment was in Peru, but at least there was the reason that I was the only gringo in the town. The most comical request in Bangalore came when I was wandering alone in the Botanical Gardens and two guys approached me. When I asked why they wanted me in the photo, their response was priceless: “Because you’re foreign, and you’re looking so gorgeous.” I’ve been called many things before, but this was a first…

Of course, when Sabina arrived, the requests only increased. Together with my college friends Will and Dan, we went out to dinner at a rather fancy local restaurant. Upon being seated, our overly enthusiastic waiter began the conversation to Sabina with the priceless, “Madam, you look just like Barbie!” She whispered in my ear, “Should I take that as a compliment?”, to which I nodded while us boys desperately trying to suppress our laughter. We failed.

One final interesting tidbit came when I was walking down the central shopping street in the heart of Bangalore. And I mean the main street in the city, with all the fancy brands and men walking in suits, that sort of thing. A guy on the street corner with somewhat bloodshot eyes pulled out a nifty little wooden pocket chess set and tried to make a sale. “How peculiar,” I thought, “that I’d get offered a chess set here!” After I politely declined, he immediately came closer and whispered, “Want to buy some weed?” I recalled in shock at the sudden realisation:

…the chess-salesman in Bangalore are also the drug dealers!!

Okay, it was just one guy. And none of the other dealers I encountered for the rest of the trip had chess sets. Yes, that’s right, I got approached almost a dozen times on my stay. Whoever this IPL cricketer is, I’m starting to suspect he’s got a little problem…

The wedding itself was an amazing affair, as anyone who’s ever been to an Indian wedding can attest. The festivities lasted almost a week, but you’ve had to read too much of this diary-entry already and I won’t bore you any more with text; instead, here’s a couple of snaps to give you the flavour. And, for no particular reason, I’ve added my game against Vedant’s daughter. An Indian star of the future!