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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  Equality on 64 squares
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Equality on 64 squares

Lack of sight is not a handicap in this game, shows a new documentary on blind chess players in India

Chess mates: (from left) McDonald filming Inani, Jadhav and Saikrishna. Photo: Courtesy AkamPuram.Premium
Chess mates: (from left) McDonald filming Inani, Jadhav and Saikrishna. Photo: Courtesy AkamPuram.

OTHERS :

British film-maker Ian McDonald’s documentary Algorithms begins with close-ups of long, inquisitive fingers feeling the pieces on a chessboard. Gentle Carnatic music (rendered by composer and guitarist Prasanna) plays on guitar in the background as different sets of hands search for the right move. It’s not just the chessboard that’s black and white; the film itself is devoid of colour.

“As soon as you make something black and white, you make it explicit that you are watching what’s not completely real," says McDonald. “We want the audience to ask and answer the question why. Is it to provoke us about the nature of sight, whether what we are seeing is real, raise the questions of seeing, not seeing? Sometimes colour gets in the way, but black and white is more intense."

Algorithms is the journey of three teenage chess players—from a tournament in Mumbai in 2009 through the World Junior Blind Chess Championship in Sweden later that year to just after the next edition in Greece 2011. During this three-year journey (he finished shooting in January 2012), McDonald followed the three boys, Saikrishna S.T., Darpan Inani and Anant Kumar Nayak, to their homes in Chennai, Vadodara and Bhubaneshwar respectively, to highlight their struggles, anxieties and hopes.

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Moving ahead: Darpan Inani. Photo: Courtesy AkamPuram.

McDonald, who also teaches sociology at the University of Brighton, UK, was shooting a documentary on the Kerala martial art form of Kalaripayattu from 2004-06 when he came across a small newspaper article on a junior blind chess tournament in Kerala. He kept the clipping, hoping to revisit the issue later. “I am interested in sport stories with a twist," he says.

Curiosity took him to a tournament for the blind in England and, he says, there were maybe 20 players, 15 of them over 60 years old. He went to the nationals in Mumbai, 2009, and saw hundreds of players, many of whom were children. “It was amazing. There was a thriving, hidden world of blind chess here," says McDonald, who was now hooked to the story.

Though the three boys’ objectives are the same, their stories are different. Saikrishna, 12 years old at the beginning of the film, is partially blind and struggles to cope with his disappointing losses in the world event both times. Inani, 15, is fully blind and the only one with an Elo rating (a system to calculate relative skill levels of players). He succumbs every time the pressure intensifies, which bothers him and his parents. Nayak, 16, also totally blind, cannot continue with his chess for too long because he comes from a different socio-economic class and is under pressure from his parents to focus more on academics.

Each thread is layered, gives the perspectives of the respective parents, tackles issues of infrastructure, education, competition, finances and ambition.

“I didn’t want to romanticize blindness," says McDonald. “Saikrishna is going completely blind but it’s not made clear in the film. The other two, their tragedy is in the past; Sai faces a tragic future."

Blind players use a special board in which the black squares are slightly raised for differentiation and every piece has a peg that fits into a securing hole on the board. The black pieces are marked. Each move has to be announced by the player for the benefit of the opponent. The legal definition of blindness to compete in these tournaments is contentious—partially sighted players can also compete, says McDonald.

The All India Chess Federation for the Blind (AICFB) was formed about 15 years ago and has over 2,500 registered players on its roster. They have held over nine National championships and sent an Indian team each year to the World Chess Championship for over a decade. Mumbai-based Charudatta Jadhav is its general secretary, blind chess’ most visible figure in India and the fulcrum of McDonald’s 100-minute film.

Algorithms is as much the boys’ story as it is Jadhav’s. “He wants success (for the players) but his need for success is not for immediate gain but for broader project to elevate blind chess in India, get government support and funds," says McDonald.

For Jadhav, a completely blind former champion, chess is a means to an end—to develop analytical and memory capabilities. “My objective is only to create an awareness in society and also among the blind. Chess and computers are two areas where blindness is not an obstacle. If the movie can convey that, the effort would have been worthwhile," says Jadhav, who heads innovation strategy for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Mumbai.

Jadhav says, in the film, that chess is the only sport in which the blind can play with the sighted and he wants that to happen. “He wants every blind person to play chess because he believes it will give them a sense of equality and empowerment with the sighted, which other sports don’t. He is doing this to give these boys confidence. But the adolescent boys just want to win," says McDonald.

It’s the reason Jadhav is devastated at the end of the film when the results, at Greece, do not go as anticipated. “Till the penultimate level, we were confident of winning two medals. Then both the boys lost their final matches. It was so near and so far. After doing so much, we were not able to achieve an important milestone. It was shattering for me," says Jadhav, who is also the vice-president of the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA), over the phone.

For McDonald, the process of filming offered valuable lessons: “It reminded me to reflect on the limitations of eyesight. What’s important is foresight, to see beyond, calculate motivations of people. If you are blind, you have to think like that, because you don’t have the benefit of eyesight. Chess is a great metaphor. You have to think of the next step, the next four to five steps. I got sucked in the way the blind were teaching me what it meant to see."

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Published: 12 Dec 2012, 07:50 PM IST
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