In India, sports have been seen as a mere hobby or an extracurricular activity used for quickly getting into a reputed college. Other than this, according to people, there is nothing more to explore. Well, that’s not the truth but a perspective that Indians have engraved in their mind. However, the current generation is trying their best to prove it wrong by taking sports as their mainstream career, not a sideline activity.
Nathamayil Natesh is a chess player, and she has been playing chess since childhood. Her parents had put her into many activity classes like art, dance, and sports. Among these, she chose chess and developed a deep interest in it. Time passed, and she learned more & more and found herself playing on state, national and international levels. However, the journey wasn’t easy as people judged her for her choice. Let us hear her story.
Nathamayil Natesh – My Story
I am Nathamayil Natesh. I was born and brought up in Chennai. I am a third-year computer science undergraduate student at VIT, and I play chess, paint, and do digital artwork.
I’m the only kid of my parents, so I didn’t have a sibling to be with. There was no kid of my age in my neighborhood to play with. Either they were adults or older than me. So my parents encouraged me to pursue hobbies and wanted me to socialize better. At the same time, I was an introvert and didn’t like to talk.
So they put me in hobby classes like chess, art, and music. After trying, I took up chess as I found it a little more exciting, and at the same time, I also chose art, but the music was not my cup of tea.
When I started playing chess tournaments in my city, my coach asked my parents to take me further for more tournaments, I started enjoying the game and began to get prizes, and I found myself playing chess most of the time. Maybe because It was something I was better at compared to the other two things. Later, due to my studies, I had to stop my art and music classes, but I didn’t pause playing chess.
Later, my parents enrolled me in another chess academy, where I met more experienced coaches and students. Then I started playing state and national level tournaments that the government organized. I managed to get listed in the top five positions in these tournaments. Soon, I started defeating the people from my academy, so my parents said it would be better to change the academy again with competent coaches and companions.
They firmly believe that “Sometimes you just tend to outgrow the place when you excel beyond a point and to achieve more you should switch the places for advanced practice.” After joining that academy, I played in one international tournament in Chennai under the ten years girl category. I came in 8th position.
My childhood wasn’t normal like other kids, as there were times when my friends went to birthday parties, and at the same time, I went to play a tournament. Due to this reason, they eventually stopped being friends with me and started avoiding me. I didn’t have any stable friends until my senior secondary.
People also said many things like ‘Why are you playing chess? It would be best if you learned to dance and music instead of chess. Look at other kids of your age.’ They’d compare me with others, but my mother didn’t bother about their talks, and she was proud of me. She used to say that my daughter was doing something that she loved. She can fulfill her dreams, and chess is worth investing time in.
During annual day practices in school, I remember they used to pick up students for music and dance. At that time, I felt eliminated because I was the only person who never participated in any function.
I used to feel left out and think that no one needs a person who doesn’t know anything about music and dance. My school also promoted these events rather than more minor well-known sports like chess. So it was pretty tricky for me to deal with such mentality and emotions at a tender age.
However, my teachers constantly supported me. They would assign a few students to assist me whenever I took leave for the tournament. They helped me later to cope with my studies and tell what course is going on and what teachers have taught us in the class. I was up to date with the teacher’s work in the class.
I pursued my chess very actively until I passed the eighth grade. I was good at my studies, but when I entered the ninth standard, the syllabus was quite challenging, and my chess class was far away from my home, and I had to give 4-to 5 hours for practice.
I knew that one could do nothing well without hard work, and I won’t be able to sustain the tournament because the competition would get tougher and tougher with time. So it became difficult to manage chess and studies together. My school was also not very supportive because they support other popular sports like cricket and football. So I decided to call it to quit for four years and restart it again during my college. Then I started playing again during my graduation, and I won three tournaments, one solo and two others with a team.
If I were to guide novice players and those who want to learn and play chess tournaments, then I’d like to say that it depends on your tournament type. There are two types of tournaments – rated and unrated. Rated tournaments usually extend over a week or nine days, while the unrated tournaments are just for a day.
The rated tournaments are more advisable because chess considers that “The higher your rating is, the better player you are.” Still, I could not attend many rated tournaments because of restrictions, but I had played many unrated tournaments. They boosted my growth. Once you have fame and a good reputation, companies will sponsor you. You may get jobs the government provides to the chess players in Indian oil, Indian airlines, and others. So yes, chess does have good scope. One can opt for it.
Words of Wisdom
“Self-belief, optimism, and hard work don’t guarantee success, but they at least give us hope to fight. So never give up on something you love. Things always have their way of coming back to us. So go for it! and say yes to every opportunity.”
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