A former mentor reminisces Anand

KOZHIKODE: Susheela Viswanathan had just one condition when chess officials from Kozhikode extended an invitation to her then 14-year-old son to play in a national tournament in the city in 1983. “She told us that she was only going to let her son participate if they put her up in a nice vegetarian restaurant in the city. We managed to find one and thus Viswanathan Anand arrived in Kozhikode at the age of 14 to participate in one of his first major tournaments,” says former FIDE vice president P T Ummer Koya, who was the one to extend that invitation. The rest, as the cliche goes, was history. Anand emerged victorious beating several prominent players including former national champion Nasir Ali and it set the ball rolling. A few months later, he shot to national prominence winning the National Sub-junior Chess Championships in Goa. An year later, he became the youngest International Master from the country and at 16, became the national champion. That incredible run culminated in him winning the World Junior Chess title in 1987. “Kozhikode was the first place where a reception was accorded to Anand after he won the World Junior Chess Championships in 1987. He had earlier come here to play in the National Junior Championships in 1985,” says Ummer Koya.Ummer Koya himself was one of Anand’s early mentors and it was during his tenure at FIDE that Anand first became world champion in 2000.He still remembers the chess wizard as youngster completely focused on his game and detached from everything else.