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The Meran took its nomenclature from the South Tyrol city, formerly part of Austria but later given to Italy, and renamed Merano after World War
Typically, the time I was away playing was the only window the team got to shower and catch up on sleep before they logged in to work through another night.
I learnt only later that my feverish state and aching muscles during the final two games had to do with particulars beyond the tension of a finish and the exhilaration of a win. Surya had generously passed on the chicken pox virus to both Aruna and me. Thankfully, by the time we were covered in full-blown blisters, the match was over.
On the counsel and assistance of one of our close friends Eric van Reem, who worked for the German carrier Lufthansa, Aruna managed to collect our baggage – that had been checked through from Madrid – from the Frankfurt airport.
It turned out to be a timely move since, within a few hours, chaos and typically arcane security processes kicked in, and the airport shut down. We couldn’t be certain of what lay in store, but it was now growing evident that there wasn’t going to be an easy solution.
Eric used his influence and ties in the travel industry to get through to a service, Taxi Lagerberg, in Amstelveen. They were willing to depute two drivers with a Mercedes Sprinter van to drive down from the Dutch city 500 kilometres away, pick us up from Bad Soden on 18 April, and drive us to Sofia. On the evening of 17 April,
Nielsen later told me that he and Rustam had briefly wondered if we were being ‘hacked’, since Topalov played in the exact areas we were weak in (though we had found new ideas to circumvent those shortly before the game). At some level, I suppose, they were also trying to tell themselves that if he was cheating we were going to lose anyway.
Kramnik got in touch with us after the game. With his characteristic deadpan humour, he told me, ‘I was very amused you’re playing like me; but you’re doing it so badly, I thought I should help,’ and offered himself as a remote member of our team.
While Kramnik literally joined the team, getting down and dirty, going over lines for hours at a stretch and pulling all-nighters, Kasparov also chipped in with Skype calls and notes. He had, in fact, got in touch with me before the match, offering help.
The beautiful Elista was now making the team sick. We were fixated on defending a bad position, but having invested so much work in the variation, we couldn’t just toss it away and forget about it. So we decided to go into one more game with it.
The effort you put into a winning match and a losing match is, in fact, exactly the same. But when you win you feel every bit of your work has paid off, and when you lose you feel you needn’t have bothered putting in any effort at all.
knew my life would never be the same again. I made earnest efforts to help with the baby. Truth be told, my job was limited to changing diapers and invariably finding myself sprayed upon. It was more often I who needed a change after that.
On 9 May, on the eve of the match, we had a bit of excitement as our room was unexpectedly invaded by armed security guards. We had apparently left a window open, which faced the Kremlin, where Russian President Vladimir Putin was addressing the World War II anniversary of the Soviet win over Germany, and a police boat patrolling along the Moskva River had noticed it and alerted the guards on the ground.
He had offered to assist Gelfand for the match, but the latter had turned him down. It was clear that Kasparov was available to anyone playing against me since our relations were strained over me not extending support publicly for his FIDE election pitch.
During our meeting, when Putin learnt that I had got my early chess lessons at the Tal Chess Club in Madras, he chuckled. ‘Oh, so you’re a problem we brought upon ourselves!’ he said.
Against Nakamura, for instance, whenever I tried anything spontaneous at the board, it needed to be something I was really good at or I tended to do it badly. In a sense, even moves I came up with spontaneously needed some amount of previous preparation.
As a compensatory offer for a missed chance at hosting my match against Gelfand, FIDE offered Chennai the first right to bid for the next World Championship. It’s not that I hated the thought of playing on home ground, but I was already fighting my demons by then. If I was away, on my own, I could focus on doing what I had to do and not feel scrutinized. For this, of all matches, to land in my hometown when I was anything but confident of my game felt like a sucker punch.
Since Aruna always travelled with me and later functioned as my manager, I never had to choose between spending time with her and playing chess. But with Akhil, it’s different.
