My relationship with chemistry has always been a peculiar one. Even today, I would never go so far as to say that I hate chemistry - I certainly do enjoy equations and the numerical side of it, but I lose the ability to focus during classes that dealt with the overly theoretical chapters, like metallurgy. On this day in January 2017, I had quite a few reasons for being unfocused during chemistry class. Sure, there was always the fact that we were learning about the water cycle, but more importantly, chess class was next period. This particular day was of great importance to me, as Mr. Silent was finally convinced to ditch Karate for a bit and opt for Chess as his S.P.A. instead.
When I heard the bell ring, I anxiously waited for my chemistry teacher to make the right decision and exit the classroom - and one would logically discern that this should have been done as soon as the bell rang, however she took her own sweet time with it, much to my frustration. When she finally left, I walked towards the auditorium with my usual tread that helped me pace through halls both silently and swiftly, and I was accompanied by my other classmates who were bragging about the games they won last class.
Eventually, I reached the hall, only to be greeted by the puzzle of the day that was neatly arranged on the wooden board that hung against the wall. I stared at the puzzle, and got a clue as to what the first move was, and just like the other students, half of whom were attention seeking braggarts, I stood in line to ask the teacher if my answer was correct. On this odd day, nearly everyone had the wrong answer, but I guessed the first move right. This was something that left me dumbfounded, since my lack of experience with chess led to me always getting the answer wrong. I was asked to explain why I chose the move, and I had the right answer, and this was met by a fair amount of praise that angered Mr. Blabbermouth.
Perhaps I should throw light on why Mr. Blabbermouth was so irked - he had just started receiving guidance from our school’s chess teacher at home, and he strongly believed that he was on the road to become a grandmaster. His pride, combined with his excessively frivolous nature served to be a recipe for short-lived success, at least when it comes to chess. He would irritate all the inexperienced chess players by barely looking at their board and yelling that he spotted a combination for a two-move checkmate. Needless to say, he was often wrong.
Given my budding interest in chess, I thought it seemed fit if I opted to be taught chess. Every time we had a chess tournament, I would be the only girl participating from school, and any position I got, even if it was just twenty sixth place, was met with a decent amount of respect. However, I have always been an ambitious person - and that ambition seeped into my interest in chess as well. After all, how could I not learn chess when I was barely able to tolerate the vexation caused by Mr. Blabbermouth’s recurrent doltishness?
I ended up taking chess classes from the teacher at school, and my competitiveness led to me finishing the first puzzle book in just 2 days. He was awestruck, and said that there was only one student who had solved the book before me. This one student was part of a family with three brothers - all of them played chess extremely well, and every time they participated in tournaments organised by him, they would grab the first three places. Defeating one of these brothers was the aim of everyone at school, and it was seen to be a close to impossible feat, but one that I greatly desired to achieve. I progressed quickly during the month of summer vacation, and when school reopened, I found out that I was an inexhaustible source of Mr. Blabbermouth’s unhappiness and frustration. At every turn, he would try to discredit my development in chess, and asked everyone to wait until the next tournament organised by my chess teacher to decide whether or not my improvement was worth all the attention. Mr. Silent was secretly excited by this development, as he was equally annoyed by Mr. Blabbermouth’s unjustified hubris.
This made me wait eagerly for the next tournament, and the pressure was on me - I needed to prove to Mr. Blabbermouth that I deserved all the hype I was receiving, and that I was indeed a skilful player. While it might have stemmed from fairly childish emotions, the irrational beliefs of Mr. Blabbermouth made me want to pull my hair out at times.
While pressure does have a positive effect on me, July 29th, 2017 was not an example of this. I ended up winning the first game, drawing the next four games, and losing the last game. The only fancy thing I got to say to people was the fact that I only lost one game. Being unconfident, insecure, and pressurised, I ended up a coward - I offered all my opponents draws by the 20th move just so I wouldn’t have to go through the pain of losing. On the other hand, Mr. Blabbermouth won four games - an achievement that was glorified by all of my classmates and the chess teacher since no one else from my school had achieved the same in that tournament. The chess teacher winced when I told him about how I offered the draws, and Mr. Blabbermouth was elated by the fact that his so-called theory about my improvement proved right when I failed to accomplish as much as he did during the match. For the record, he won seventh place, and I’m not the only person who is aware of this - the entire school is, because until the next tournament on August 15, 2017, he paraded around the entire school with the trophy in his hand. Greatly angered by his arrogance, the humiliation I was subjected to in the hands of my classmates, and my mother’s scepticism about the value of the time I spend on chess, I vowed to do better in the next tournament. While this dramatic series of events took its own course, Mr. Silent was fairly empathetic to my situation, as he was peeved by Mr. Blabbermouth’s style of flaunting his achievement. In fact, Mr. Silent said that Mr. Blabbermouth would misplace his trophy as he was so proud of it. The comedy of this statement lies in the fact that Mr. Blabbermouth did indeed forget the whereabouts of his trophy, and to this date, no one knows what happened to it.
On August 12th and 13th, I took part in my third state level tournament, where I made a breakthrough in my progress while playing chess. I placed fifth in the entire state, and I believed it was the beginning of many achievements to come at a state level, and to a certain extent, I was right. There were barely any tournaments where I didn’t place in the top ten. Nevertheless, I kept my joy to a minimum and kept myself grounded - as I had an opportunity to end Mr. Blabbermouth “regime” on August 15th.
At some point during the prize distribution ceremony of the state level tournament, I turned back to get a glimpse of the people around me - and my eyes fell upon the three brothers who all the chess players in my school were always intimidated by. I then hypothesized that they may also be participating in the tournament on August 15th, which meant no one at school would be able to bag any of the top three places no matter how hard they tried. None of us believed we stood a chance against three brothers who grew up on chess. Despite my ambition creeping into me and telling me unrealistically that I could beat all three of them, I decided to subscribe to the harsh reality that I stood no chance. However, this realistic approach of mine did not minimise my performance.
Based on his performance in the last tournament, Mr. Blabbermouth was positioned at one of the higher boards, while I started at just Board 20. Mr. Blabbermouth did not fail to flex the fact that he was playing his first match in Board 8, but his exuberance was somewhat muted by the fact that the three brothers were participating. Game after game, all the participants from my school would huddle around Boards one, two, and three to witness the games played by the brothers.
Three games later, Mr. Blabbermouth and I were the only people from my school to have won all three games. This resulted in both of us being paired with one of the outrageously talented brothers. As we proceeded to our boards, the boys in my school wished Mr. Blabbermouth best of luck, while they ridiculed me and told me that I stood no chance since I was paired with the best of the three brothers. I ignored their words and focused on the game, and frankly I did not expect much.
Seated in Board 2, I had the privilege of witnessing the horror that Mr. Blabbermouth was facing in Board 3. Within the first five minutes of the game, he lost his Queen and had his hands over his head, shaking in dismay with a contemplative look on his face. Internally, I was grinning from ear to ear when I noticed this, but I kept my focus limited to the game I was playing.
Everyone expected me to lose within fifteen minutes like Mr. Blabbermouth did, but I played the longest game in that tournament. I battled with my opponent until the very end, and much to everyone’s surprise, and my own - I ended up winning the game. When this was declared, Mr. Blabbermouth ran out of the gaming hall with tears in his eyes, refusing to face anyone in his path. I did not have much time before the pairings for the fifth game were announced, but I let my mother know about my victory with a smile on my face that earned it’s place - while I don’t smile all that often, this was an “I told you so” moment, and if contemptuous smirks aren’t a part of my life, what are?
I did end up losing the last game, but winning over one of those brothers greatly increased my overall prestige at school. I believe it’s what led to my schoolmates accepting that I was the best chess player there. The guy who told me that my opponent in the fourth game was the toughest to beat among the brothers ended up telling me that he was evidently the worst, but this incident is more suitable for a post about rampant male chauvinism.
What made my victory even sweeter is the fact that I placed third - no one in my school had done that before in a tournament where the three brothers had participated. Moreover, their father offered some words of encouragement to my mother about my performance in chess, and said that I did have potential. This was a slap in the face to Mr. Blabbermouth, who ended up winning eighth place, and grabbed his trophy with a glum look on his face.
The day after the tournament, when I got to school, I was blessed with the opportunity to watch people jeer at Mr. Blabbermouth for his ridiculous conceitedness after the last tournament. These “people” comprised those who Mr. Blabbermouth considered to be friends, but hypocrites aren’t a new discovery, are they?
What amused me most was how everyone switched up to support me as soon as I began achieving a lot more in chess than Mr. Blabbermouth did. Mr. Silent, however, disliked the idea of Mr. Blabbermouth playing well from the start, and he was excited when I won third place.
As much as I would like to say that people got over it - they did not. It laid the foundation for my reputation as far as chess was concerned, which meant a lot given the fact that the most important event was coming up at school - the whole school chess championship.
To be continued in Part 2.