‘Beautiful board’: How chess saved an Indian village from alcohol, gambling

Marottichal, India – Phones, wallets and half-drunk teacups clutter bare tables – except for 1 – astatine a teahouse successful confederate India, wherever a assemblage has formed astir a chess committee and 2 competitors.

One of them is 15-year-old Gowrishankar Jayaraj. Surrounded by spectators vying for a presumption of the chess board, Jayaraj is competing blindfolded.

Playing unsighted from the game’s opening means the teen indispensable visualise, support and update a intelligence exemplary of the board, arsenic moves from some players are communicated aloud by a designated referee.

Jayaraj is playing a overmuch older Baby John, whose look is taut with discomfort. His shrinking shoulders and pursed rima betray that helium is simply a fistful of moves distant from losing his 4th crippled successful astir 40 minutes.

“Gowrishankar is conscionable 15 and already thing of a chess prodigy. He beats maine adjacent erstwhile helium is blind,” says John.

Baby John, left, playing against a blindfolded Gowrishankar Jayaraj, a rising Indian chess star, successful Marottichal [Mirja Vogel/ Al Jazeera]

‘Chess Village of India’

Jayaraj and John are residents of Marottichal, a sleepy colony of astir 6,000 residents located astatine the ft of the Western Ghats successful the picturesque Thrissur territory of India’s Kerala state.

In the aboriginal 2000s, Marottichal became known by the chess assemblage successful Kerala arsenic the “Chess Village of India” due to the fact that astatine slightest 1 idiosyncratic successful each household present is believed to beryllium chess-proficient. Across the village, radical regularly beryllium crossed chessboards, competing successful the shadiness of autobus stops, extracurricular market shops and connected the playground.

“More than 4,500 radical present – oregon 75 percent – of the village’s 6,000 residents are proficient players,” says John, who is besides the president of Marottichal’s Chess Association.

Jayaraj is presently ranked wrong India’s apical 600 progressive chess players, according to the World Chess Federation (FIDE), and hopes to adhd to India’s growing stature arsenic a planetary leader successful the sport.

In September, India swept the Open and Women’s golden medals astatine the 2024 Chess Olympiad. Then, the country’s youngest-ever grandmaster, Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, won the World Chess Championship successful December. And Grandmaster Koneru Humpy capped disconnected a victory-laden twelvemonth for India aft she won the FIDE Women’s World Rapid Chess Championship the aforesaid month.

Jayaraj, who presently holds a 2012 standing by FIDE, hopes to travel successful the footsteps of Indian heroes similar Viswanathan Anand and Dommaraju, and go a grandmaster.

His imagination reflects the agelong travel Marottichal has taken to interruption from a estimation precise antithetic from the 1 it presently relishes.

Charaliyil Unnikrishnan, centre, sits adjacent to Gowrishankar Jayaraj, portion Baby John, standing, laughs. Unnikrishnan, a erstwhile Maoist rebel, brought chess to the colony [Mirja Vogel/Al Jazeera]

‘King and saviour’

Four decades ago, the colony was successful the grip of an intoxicant addiction and gambling situation that was pushing galore families to the verge of ruin. 

In the 1970s, 3 Marottichal households were brewing nut-based intoxicant for idiosyncratic consumption. But by the aboriginal 80s, the colony had go a determination hub for illicit intoxicant production.

“People weren’t conscionable drinking, they were brewing and selling liquor successful their houses each night,” Jayaraj Manazhy, a nonmigratory of the colony – unrelated to Gowrishankar Jayaraj – tells Al Jazeera.

The commercialized flowed betwixt villages with Marottichal arsenic the root of the alcohol.

But farming families began to neglect their livestock and crops. With diminishing returns from the land, villagers soon turned to gambling done paper games astatine the liquor accumulation houses, from wherever bookies besides operated.

A deficiency of regular income and the reliance connected intoxicant saw galore families autumn into poverty.

“Young children were near without apparel to wear. Others were starving,” says different local, who requested anonymity. There seemed to beryllium nary anticipation for an extremity to the epidemic.

Until Charaliyil Unnikrishnan, a section resident-turned-exile, returned to Marottichal successful the precocious 1980s.

Unnikrishnan had been shunned by his household for joining a Maoist question successful his youth. He gave up the question and returned successful his aboriginal 30s to acceptable up a teahouse successful the bosom of the village.

But the power intoxicant held implicit his colony perturbed the erstwhile rebel. “It was a acheronian clip backmost past for our community,” helium recalls to Al Jazeera.

Unnikrishnan decided to act.

He assembled a tiny radical of friends whom helium had known from his teenage years successful the colony and began networking with the wives and mothers of the liquor producers who were angered by their husbands and sons for spearheading production.

Over the people of months, Unnikrishnan received isolated tip-offs astir brewing times, which usually took spot agelong into the night. Unnikrishnan and his friends would raid the houses wherever intoxicant was being produced and stored, destroying hidden supplies and the instrumentality utilized to nutrient it.

Sometimes, they were met with resistance, but Unnikrishnan had amassed enactment from the different villagers who were hopeless for change. The producers, with declining request and small means to restart their enterprise, were outnumbered.

After the raids, Unnikrishnan would invitation members of the assemblage to play chess.

“The crippled brought america together. We started talking astir it much and more, and radical would conscionable to play alternatively than drink,” says John, who secured backing from different villages to make determination tournaments and successfully campaigned for chess to go portion of the program successful some the little and precocious superior schools successful the village.

“We genuinely started to portion unneurotic our lives astir this beauteous board,” helium says.

At his shop, Unnikrishnan served the villagers not conscionable tea, but besides his imaginativeness of a aboriginal escaped of intoxicant addiction. And that, helium told them, could beryllium done done chess, an past crippled of strategy believed to person originated successful India.

Soon, radical engrossed implicit a chess committee became a communal show crossed the village.

Meanwhile, cases of intoxicant addiction and gambling began to diminution successful the village. Families, erstwhile devastated by the bottle, alternatively huddled unneurotic astir a chess board, competing against loved ones for the precocious of a checkmate.

“Before we knew chess, galore [of us] were listless,” says Francis Kachapilly, a recovered alcoholic, arsenic helium stands alongside Unnikrishnan astatine the teahouse watching Jayaraj and John play.

“We didn’t person a focus. Chess gave america thing new.”

Unnikrishnan taught chess to astir 1,000 villagers and has himself competed against grandmasters internationally. Several young players from Marottichal are competing internationally and wrong India regularly.

In 2016, Marottichal was awarded a Universal Asian Record by the Universal Records Forum for the top fig of amateur competitors (1,001) playing chess concurrently successful Asia.

Unnikrishnan, present 67, is fondly “known to the radical successful Marottichal arsenic our king and saviour”, says John.

Jayem Vallur, left, suffered a near-fatal roadworthy accident, and credits chess and his adjacent friends Unnikrishnan, centre, and Baby John, right, with helping him mostly retrieve from the resulting paralysis [Mirja Vogel/Al Jazeera]

‘Chess brought maine backmost to life’

Unlike gambling, determination is almost no constituent of accidental successful chess.

The crippled is deterministic – the subordinate who makes the champion postulation of moves wins; and the rules and format region the accidental to mention adverse conditions arsenic excuses oregon blasted atrocious luck for losses.

Unnikrishnan is reluctant to accidental that the worth chess places connected making bully decisions and avoiding atrocious ones is solely liable for the simplification successful alcoholism and gambling successful Marottichal.

But helium believes it had a “big impact”.

Across the world, chess has been instrumental successful treating addiction and intelligence and cognitive issues. In Spain, the athletics was incorporated into rehabilitation programmes to dainty drug, intoxicant and gambling addiction. More recently, successful the United Kingdom, scientist Rosie Meeks argued that situation chess clubs helped to “reduce unit and conflict, make connection and different skills, and beforehand affirmative usage of leisure time” among inmates.

Few person felt the payment of chess much than Jayem Vallur.

The 59-year-old is vice president of Marottichal’s Chess Association and 1 of its astir enthusiastic players.

Just earlier noon connected a chill time successful January astatine Unnikrishnan’s teahouse, helium opens his lucifer with a beaming smile, and by the mediate game, helium is laughing infectiously with his opponent. Pieces are exchanged implicit bawdy jokes connected the black-and-white committee betwixt them.

Twenty-five years ago, Vallur was warring for his beingness aft helium suffered a high-speed clang portion riding his motorcycle. First responders peeled his lifeless assemblage from the roadworthy and rushed him to the infirmary wherever helium would walk 2 months hooked to life-support machines.

“Doctors told my household and friends that my encephalon had been severely damaged by the crash,” Vallur tells Al Jazeera.

He was wholly paralysed astatine first, but dilatory began to regain question successful his little body. Unnikrishnan and John were among his closest friends and would walk hours beside his infirmary bed.

After Vallur started to amusement signs of betterment successful his speech, his friends would bring a chess committee with them during their visits. Soon, his cognitive functions began to improve. Today, lone his close limb is paralysed from the enarthrosis down.

Vallur believes the regular chess matches during his betterment helped. “Chess brought maine backmost to life,” helium says.

In 2023, Marottichal’s redemption attracted the attraction of filmmaker and writer Kabeer Khurana, who directed a 35-minute film, The Pawn of Marottichal, charting the village’s conflict with addiction to its recovery.

Khurana, whose movie is acceptable for merchandise this year, says helium “sensed the enthusiasm, passionateness and vigor of the radical erstwhile helium archetypal visited the village”.

Back astatine Unnikrishnan’s teahouse, the midday games are opening to wrapper up. Vallur steps up to the sheet for a last crippled against Jayaraj, who is victorious again.

“I taught his parent however to play,” says Vallur, smiling. “He is going to marque the full of India proud.”