India’s Marottocyal -Phone, Wallet, and Missing Tea Cups are cluttered in empty tables except for one person. A crowd was formed around the Chess Committee and the two competitors at a teahouse in southern India.
One of them is 15 -year -old GORISHANKAR JAYARAJ. Jaya Radi, surrounded by the audience in search of the view of the Chess Committee, is blindfolded.
Playing a blind from the opening of the game means that a teenager needs to visualize, maintain, and update the mental model of the board. This is because the movement from both players can be conveyed by voice by the specified referee.
Jayalaku plays a much older baby gong. The expression is uncomfortable. The mouth that shrinks his shoulders and chased his mouth betrayed that he was a little far away from losing his fourth game nearly 40 minutes.
“Gowrishankar is only 15 years old and is already a chess genius. He’s blind,” says John.
“Indian Chess Village”
Jaya Radi and John are the residents of Malottecoal, a sleepy village of nearly 6,000 residents at the foot of the West Gato Mountains in the beautiful trisser district, like Indian paintings.
In the early 2000s, Marottical was known as the “Chess Village in India” by the chess community in Kerala. Beyond the village, people regularly cross the chessboard and compete at the bus stop, outside of grocery stores, and playgrounds.
“Of the 6,000 residents of the village are more than 4,500 players,” John, the chairman of the Marottical Chess Association.
JAYARAJ is currently ranked in the top 600 active chess players in India, according to the World Chess Federation (FIDE), and wants to be added to the growing height of India as a global leader of sports.
In September, India swept an open gold medal in Chess Olympiad in 2024. Later, Goke Domalaju (18 years old), the youngest grandmaster in Japan, won the World Chess Championship in December. The Grandmaster Connel Humpy ended the year in the same month after winning the Fide Women’s World Rapid Chess Championship, and in India.
Jayalaj, who is currently rated in 2012, hopes to follow the footprints of Indian heroes such as Viswanathan Anand and DOMMARAJU and become a grand master.
His dream reflects the long journey taken to break away from a very different reputation than what is now seasoned.
“King and Savior”
Forty years ago, the village was in the crisis of alcoholic poisoning and gambling, causing many families to be ruined.
In the 1970s, three marotical households brewed nut -based alcohol for personal consumption. However, by the beginning of the 1980s, the village became a hub of illegal alcohol production.
“People just drunk, they brewed and sold at home every night,” he told Al Jazeera with the village resident, Gowrishankar Jayaraj.
The trade flowed between the villages with Marottocyal as a source of alcohol.
However, agricultural families began to ignore livestock and crops. As the returns from the land decreased, the villagers quickly turned into gambling through card games in the sake and alcoholic homes that are also operated.
Many families have fallen poverty due to the lack of normal income and dependence on alcohol.
“The young children were left without dressing. Others were hungry,” says another local. It seemed that there was no hope for ending the trend.
Until Charaliyyil Unnikrishnan, the exiled person who turned into a local resident, returned to Marottical in the late 1980s.
UNNIKRISHNAN was shunned from his family because he participated in the Mao Tongeau movement during his adolescence. He gave up his exercise and returned to his early 30s and set up a teahouse in the center of the village.
However, the impact of being held on his village disturbed the former rebel. “It was a dark time for our community at that time,” he recalls Al Jazira.
Unnikrishnan has decided to act.
He gathered a small group that he knew from his teens in the village, and began networking with his wife and mother of alcoholic producers who were angry with their husband and son for production.
For several months, Unnikrishnan received a isolated chip -off about brewing time. Unnikrishnan and his friend attacked a house where alcohol is produced and stored, destroying the hidden supply and the equipment used to produce it.
Sometimes they encountered resistance, but UNNIKRISHNAN was gaining support from other villagers who had been changing. The number of producers has increased due to declining demand and few means to resume companies.
After the attack, Unnikrishnan invited a community to chess.
“This game has connected us. Continue the campaign to secure funds from other villages and create local tournaments, and the chess becomes part of the curriculum in both the lower and upper layers. Successful John states:
“We have begun to connect our lives around this beautiful board,” he says.
In his store, UNNIKRISHNAN served not only tea but also his vision of the future without alcoholic poisoning. And he told them through chess, an ancient strategic game, believed to have been born in India.
Immediately, the people who were absorbed in the Chess Committee became a general sight of the whole village.
On the other hand, alcohol poisoning and gambling cases began to decrease in the village. The family was once devastated in the bottle, but instead, we were together around the Chess Committee and competed with loved ones for the best checkmates.
“Before I knew the chess, many (our) had no waste,” he recovered because he was standing with Unikrishnan at a teahouse watching Jaya Radi and John. Alcohol addiction Francis Kachapilly says.
“We didn’t have the focus. Chess gave us something new.”
Unnikrishnan taught chess to almost 1,000 villagers, and he himself competed internationally with the Grand Master. Several young players from Malottic are regularly competing internationally and in India.
In 2016, Marottical was awarded a universal Asia record from the Universal Record Forum for the largest amateur competitors (1,001) of amateur competitors (1,001), which are chess in Asia at the same time.
“Our king and a savior are known to the Malottical people,” said John, 67 years old, UNNIKRISHNAN.
“The chess made me come back to life.”
Unlike gambling, chess has little accidental elements.
The game is determined. The player who gets the best movements wins. Rules and formats delete the opportunity to quote the sub -conditions as an excuse, or blame the bad luck of loss.
Unnikrishnan is reluctant to say that chess makes good decisions and is valuable to avoid bad decisions.
But he believes that it has a “big impact.”
In the world, chess has been working on the treatment of poisoning, psychological and cognitive issues. In Spain, this sport was built into a rehabilitation program to treat drugs, alcohol and gambling poisoning. In recent years, in the UK, psychologist Rosie Miks says that prison chesclabs are “reducing violence and disputes, developing communication and other skills, and promoting positive use of leisure.” He claimed that it would be useful.
Few people have more chess profits than Jem Varuru.
59 is the vice president of the Malottic Chess Association and one of the most enthusiastic players.
Immediately before the cool day of the cool day at UNNIKRISHNAN’s teahouse, he played a game with a brilliant smile, and in the middle game, he was infected and laughed with his opponent. Peace is replaced beyond the unwavering jokes with a black -and -white board between them.
25 years ago, VALLUR fought for his life after a high -speed crash while riding a motorcycle. The first response stripped his lively body from the road, rushed to the hospital, where he hooked on a life support and spent two months.
“The doctor told my family and friends that my brain was severely damaged by the crash,” Valulu told Al Jazira.
He was completely paralyzed at first, but slowly began to regain the lower body movement. Unnikrishnan and John are one of his closest friends and spend many hours near his hospital bed.
After VALLUR began to show signs of speech improvement, his friend brought a chess board while visiting. Immediately, his cognitive function began to improve. Today, only his right arm is paralyzed from his shoulders.
VALLUR believes that regular chess games helped during recovery. “The chess has revived me,” he says.
In 2023, Marottical’s RED was drawn to the focus of the film creator and writer Kabuia Clana, who supervised the 35 -minute film “Pawn of the Marottical Pawn”, and described the struggle against the degree of addiction to the village recovery. 。
The movie released this year says, “When he first visited the village, I felt the enthusiasm, passion, and energy of the people.”
Returning to Unnikrishnan’s teahouse, noon games are starting to end. VALLUR is on a plate for the final game with Jayaraj, who won again.
“I taught how to play his mother,” says Valul with a smile. “He is proud of India.”
