The young Canadian Champ Janak Awatramani

Special thanks to Janak’s Mom Patricia for sending me this article

Checkmated on Vancouver’s streets
Samar Halarnkar – Monday, May 19, 2008 10:53 AM

There’s a chess champion in this photo.

The portly man on the right is David Strauss, known and feared on Vancouver’s vibrant street chess scene. He plays upto 100 opponents at the same time. This is his modus operandi: David sets up his table and his chess boards and distributes leaflets titled, “Go ahead, make your move.” He plays on “a donation-only basis”, meaning, if you want to play, you play. Don’t know how to play? Daved will teach you: Basics, intermediate and advanced chess techniques. Half-hour lessons are $10. Suggested donations: zero for people in wheelchairs, $5 or less for students, seniors or “underemployed folks (there are lots of homeless in Vancouver and many appear to play chess)”. Everyone else, “please contribute $5 and up”, says David.

The boy to David’s left, the one struggling to keep his balance, is Janak Joshua Awatramani, our 9-year-old nephew. Janak is an avid chess fan. While other Vancouver kids play video games and watch television, he plays the ancient game of kings on computer and on Vancouver’s streets. His father, and our host, Gyan Awatramani (that’s him on the extreme left of the photo), brings him here to the street-chess centre at the corner of Hornby and Robson streets (outside the art museum, a reallly cool place to watch or play the game) to hone his skills against the chess afficionados. Janak’s father is from Bombay, his mother, Patricia (that’s her to Janak’s left, smiling, in the blue tee and black tracks) from Zurich, Switzerland. He’s been born and brought up in Vancouver, listens to the Jodhaa Akbar soundtrack at home and just created an artificial volcano for his science project at school the day before yesterday.

Until yesterday, David thought he was the Vancouver street-chess champion.

Then, he met Janak.

“I can give him lessons,” said David as he eyed Janak imperiously. It was a perfect Friday — warm, sunny (an unbelievable 27 degrees C) and bustling with people.

“No, he can play.” That’s all Gyan said as Janak, often taciturn, clambered onto the cement platform and struggled to keep his balance.

After some swift opening moves, in which Janak moved with lightning speed, barely pausing when his turn came, David looked up.

“He does seem to know how to play,” he said to Gyan, who gave a half smile and only nodded. All around us, a crowd slowly gathered. An old man whom Janak had beaten 30 minutes ago (you can see him too in the top photo, between David and Janak) sidled up to Patricia, scratched his stubble and grinned: “You must be the proud Mama eh?” Patricia said nothing. She gets very tense when Janak plays.

David quickly grabbed a knight and a rook. He soon realised it was an intentional sacrifice made by Janak for positional advantage. Janak struck back quickly.

“I think he does know how to play,” David said, not looking up this time. Smiles began to show on the faces of the spectators.

Within 15 minutes, David faced endgame. He frowned, stunned, but refusing to show it. “He definitely knows how to play.”

Then, checkmate. You can see David pondering over the board in the photo below (left), his chin in his hand. He knew the game was up. He wordlessly leaned across and shook hands with Janak (below, right). The spectators dropped all pretence of being neutral. They smiled, grinned and congratulated Janak.

David Strauss had been conquered. When we left, he was rearranging the board, trying to recreate the game and wondering how he’d been crushed by a silent 9-year-old.

Janak does this often with many an opponent, disarms them with his youth and innocence, then sweeps them off the board. We are all very proud of him. Of course, no one in the family can best him at chess. His love for chess is a lesson in good parenting: Janak’s dad and mum never force him to play the game, despite his obvious talent. He doesn’t take chess lessons and only practices, as I said, on the street and at home when he’s in the mood. “If he gets bored, he can just stop,” said Gyan. That’s a far cry from the stories we’ve heard of manic chess parents, one of whom makes his daughter clean the house every time she loses a game. Others employ two or more coaches for their child.

As I write this, Janak’s flown to Edmonton — a 60-minute flight — with his father to participate in national finals of the Canandian Chess Challenge 2008. He’s won the championships in his age group the last two years. The house is full of his trophies. Today, he won all six games, including knocking off the Bejing champion, who immigrated to Canada with his family just a couple of months ago. It was a really tense day for Patricia: She has never been to any of his games. “I can’t bear the tension,” she said. So, she and Janak’s sisters hung out with us today while he kept the family — and Indo-Swiss — flags flying.

She’s just gone to sleep, a happy, content mother. It’s nearing midnight, I’ve had three rum-and-cokes in celebration. Good night.

P.S. (below): The ladies take a chess break on the steps of the art museum (from left): Sufiya, the wife, Gitanjali and Patricia (with the chariot, the mother of all strollers)

Source: blogs.livemint.com (Wall Street Journal)