Moves beyond black and white

On June 21 Presidency University Chess Club, or PUChC as it is known, celebrated its first anniversary. The beginning of this journey was co-incidental but momentous.

My roommate Sushruto Ghosh had brought a chessboard and we started a game for the heck of it. We were joined by a few interested boys. One thing led to another and we went to sleep that night with the idea of creating a group for chess lovers.

Initially we were clueless , but things got interesting once we took the initiative to learn and research the game. I researched by reading books like “Your First Move”, which was an encyclopaedia of chess openings and endings.

It was very gracious of Grand Master Surya Shekhar Ganguly to talk to us and respond to our queries. Experts like Gora Basu, Prantik Roy and Soumya Thakurta, a senior in college, also encouraged us to play and learn despite our “advanced” age.

Facebook was very useful in connecting with chess enthusiasts in the city. We were joined by students from Ramkrishna Mission College, Narendrapur, St Xavier's College and Jadavpur University. We met for games and enjoyed each other's company in brooding silence.

Finally, we gave shape to this enthusiasm and started the Presidency University Chess Club (PUChC). We also used it as a platform to promote awareness about the different tournaments and encouraged non-players to join us.

We created a constitution for the club and arranged a locker to keep our boards. Given the political environment at the University, through the constitution we made it clear that the club should not be politicised at any level.

We arranged a Chess Session where players from all over Kolkata came to play. This proved successful. We then arranged a Fresher's Chess competition for the new undergraduate and post-graduate students. . Since we did not have proper chess clocks we used timers for every match; but the makeshift arrangements did not make us less serious about the games.

We got a hang of the actual game when we went to the Chess tournament at St. Xaviers College, Kolkata, where PUChC won the second and fourth positions. For many of us it was our first game outside campus.

The club also helped in connecting with our seniors; we always arrange sessions with them whenever they are in town.

This year the club plans to conduct an Inter College Chess Tournament. Sporting events have become a repository of commerce and entertainment, so we are quite proud of to have created a platform where the game is played for the sake of the game.

Rajarshi is studying Economics at Presidency University, Kolkata

COMMENT NOW