Funnily enough, a few months later, I won the National Juniors, also in Goa. Things were moving very fast for me. In six months' time, I went from being a club player to a National 'A' player.
The National Juniors was a bit difficult. Finally, with seven-and-a-half points out of nine, I won that also.
I was enjoying every moment of my career. I was dreaming of doing it one day, and that one day happened so fast. I was a bit surprised with myself at the pace with which everything was happening.
My first foreign tournament
My first foreign tournament was the World Sub-Juniors in 1984 in Paris. As I had won the National Sub-Juniors, I was selected to go to the World Sub-Junior, and I went with my parents.
It is interesting to look back now. I met a boy called Vassily Ivanchuk there! We were both 14 then. I also met there for the first time some of my other friends like Jeroen Piket, Ferdinand Hellers and Alexey Dreev.
It is quite funny, but you get the feeling that all these guys have trainers and everyone else is stronger than you. There was this guy who had a Grandmaster as his trainer, and you were terribly impressed. So, I played every game as a challenge or struggle.
I won the first few games easily. Then I beat a boy called Apicella and I still remember, Ivanchuk came and spoke to me that day. He said, thank you very much. I asked, why? He said, 'Apicella beat me two days ago, and I am very grateful for you to take revenge on my behalf.' That was our first contact.
I also remember I had an adjourned game with Piket. That meant I missed the early bus back to the hotel. There were buses at different times; one at 8 and another at 10. I wanted to take the 8 o'clock bus as I felt the game was heading for a draw. So I went and told my opponent, 'Would you mind if we made a draw? We can both go back then.'
He thought for a while and then his trainer said, no. At ten, we started to play and at 10.05, Piket said, 'It's a draw. I was very annoyed because the next bus after that was at 12 and it was extremely cold outside.
But the main thing about the tournament was me getting jaundice. I remember for many days I was too weak even to think. So, I would opt for the first move that came to my mind because I was too tired and sleepy all the time.
Dreev came first, Piket, second, and I was third. I could barely walk to the podium and collect my bronze medal. If you look back, going to the podium and collecting the trophy was fun but my parents had to endure a lot during that event. It was also fun meeting all those guys. Ivanchuk and I still talk about the time we met in 1984!
A year later, I played against him at the World Junior at Sharjah and that's the one he still talks about a lot. At Sharjah, we used to play blitz for hours, and we made the guy who lost stay back.
Image, kind courtesy: Aruna Anand.
'I have many years of chess in me'
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