I remember 1997 as a spectacular year; it was the year I won the chess Oscar for the first time.
I won all the three disciplines at the Amber tournament; finished overall first, and individually first in blindfold and rapid. (Anand is the first player in the history of the tournament to do so). It was perfect.
The Chess Oscar was the icing on the cake. We were invited to Moscow for the ceremony. There was a magician there and he came near us and gave us some handkerchiefs. At the end of the ceremony, he came to Spassky and me and gave us our watches. Imagine we didn't know he had taken our watches from us. It was embarrassing. I was happy he had tricked Spassky too.
From 1995 onwards, maintaining consistency was special.
In 1998, I won five tournaments; Wijk Aan Zee, Madrid, Linares, Tilberg, Frankfurt. My Elo points went up to 2795.
I will skip the other years and say 2004 also was nice because I was winning tournament after tournament.
Star struck
College and school are good because it helps you get away from chess once in a while. When you have exams, you forget about chess and after a break of two months or so, when you come back, you come back strongly. Carlsson has the same problem. He wants to play somewhere but his mother tells him to go back to school. It reminded me of my school days.
Nowadays, you really have to plan a vacation or take a week's break and keep your computer switched off. You can have a hobby like astronomy or travel or meet friends.
Astronomy is a good hobby because you can practice it every night. I have binoculars and a telescope. Astronomy has been an interest from the beginning; one of the first books I read was Cosmos. I was always fascinated by the subject.
Aruna gifted me with the binoculars and the telescope recently. It was a surprise gift. It is very relaxing to look at the sky; it grows on you. Generally you look for interesting constellations. But the nice thing is to look at the planets and unusual objects. As the seasons change, it is interesting to look for new constellations.
I remember when I went to Cruga in South Africa, we could see the entire Milky Way because there was no light for hundreds of miles!
One could see 2,500 stars at least.
Image: Anand with his parents. Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj
Rani Ananth on her son-in-law
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