Qurbani

Unless one produces victories after victories over the chess board, there is little use in being a creative genius. Accumulating prize money is the right of clinical players, not the task of the beautiful players. It’s better to produce a string of lifeless draws and get permanent tournament invitations and income than to be mesmerizing. These are the sad truths of modern chess times which Aahva never realized, poor fellow! 

For him, playing conventionally meant being dull. He kept sacrificing both on and off the board, former intentionally and the latter consequently. Practically, I must admit he was nugatory. He hardly lifted his bum and his eyes from the chair where he used to sit for scripting beautiful sacrifices and from the wooden carvings which he used to romantically stare at, respectively. As he rose to the elite chess scene, it suddenly dawned upon the players world wide that what were they longing for until now! They were feasting on the elite grandmasters’ games for the necessary vitamins for their own games, but that pinch of salt was missing until he came to the ring. Aahva, true to his name, was loved by all and had many a chess fan, thanks to his creative style, but to what use is this glory if you can’t make a living out of it? As engines started ascending into GMs’ preparations, he quickly descended from the elite scene, thanks to the employment of silicon moves from his opponents and his refusal to do away with sacrifices to keep the aesthetics and originality alive! After all, what was a peacock to do among siliconites? Sir Arthur’s brain child Sherlock Holmes had once commented on such geniuses as ‘The frailty of a genius mind is that, it needs an audience!’

However Aahva wasn’t unto mere showing off, but rather it was personal as he had a deep incurable lust for sacrifices, the real ones. He wasn’t fond of pseudo sacrifices much, although at times he implemented them to gain a direct result, a checkmate or material regain with some benefit. But what truly set him apart from the rest of the playing crowd was that his fearlessness and innate ability to create real sacrifices hoping to improve one’s odds at winning although daedalian and complicated compared to the regular game flow. Most conventional players feared facing him because of the unpredictability that he used to bring with his every move, major dailies of his country hailed him as the sacrificial King!

As a small kid, Aahva had sacrificed his childhood by being hooked to playing chess with serious adult friends or with himself exercising rich imagination from both sides in his small cozy room while other kids of his age were playing outside joyfully. He was hailed as a child prodigy! As an adult, he had sacrificed his carefree adulthood by submerging himself in chess books and tournaments while adults of his age were having time of their life with their capricious friends. He was inspired by the great Morphy. No girlfriend, no marriage, no social life, no deep pockets, no luxuries. The genius had sacrificed everything he had possessed and was capable of possessing for the game! Couple of times in his chess career, he had nearly become homeless forcing him to give a string of blindfold simultaneous chess exhibitions to chess enthusiasts thus earning penny to run his life. He spent the endgame of his life in a mental asylum with no near and dear ones to care for him. 

In hindsight, if you ask me could he have been much more well rounded, rational, social and happy? Could it have brought him more name, more money, some near and dear ones to care for and to share joys and sorrows with? Could he have applied his genius mind elsewhere apart from chess to bring in real changes in the society? Was his life wasted?

I don’t know. But, what I know for sure is that his whole life was a sacrifice to the game of chess, a Qurbani!

-- Aruna

   First published on 31-08-2019

   Revised on 17-08-2024