Sujan also teaches others in the school and village. She won at the tehsil and district levels before making her way to the state level. In the school’s 14-year span, Sujan has been the chess champion. I am getting better at it ,” Nirali said with a big smile. My father used to beat me in the game earlier but now I am the one who wins. I play for two hours every day with my friends and my father. She has defeated Yash three times in the last 30 minutes and is now running her queen on the chess board to defeat him for the fourth time. Nirali, 12, with a red ribbon in her hair, is staring at the chess board. They get so engrossed in the game that they are unaware of what’s going on outside. Girls of all ages play chess sitting in the courtyard of the house dressed in traditional clothes. Lalavadar village changes in the evening. “ We teach anyone who comes to our village, whether they are relatives, newlyweds or children,” said Sakariya Ramesh Bhai, who taught the game to many newlyweds.įrom young girls to newlyweds, everyone plays chess in this village in their free time | Photo: Satendra Singh Changemaker chess Ramani may not be able to see with his own eyes, but he saw the talent in these children and helped them out.Ĭhess has almost become a ritual in Lalavadar. The king never dies because the king never fights.” This is a line from one of the poems that BM Ramani used to teach the children to play chess in a fun way. “We are all pieces of chess, no more or less. As Ramani is blind, the children used to read the book aloud to him. Ramani did not know much about the game himself and went to a district library to search for a Gujarati book called Chalo Chess Sikhiye Ramta Ramta ( Let’s Learn Chess Slowly). This made it easier to get a grasp on the game,” he added. “We ordered books simplifying the rules of chess. Jitendra explained how the kids were taught the game. Our children won Rs 43,000 in the 2013 event,” Ramani said. “When the Gujarat government introduced Khel Mahakumbh, I started teaching chess to our school children, and soon the addiction reached the village as well. Teachers said that if Ramani taught these children chess, they would be able to participate in this event. The year before, the Gujarat government had launched Khel Mahakumbh and chess was also part of this event. Ramani came to this village school as a teacher in 2011.
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