I was 13 and living in a small district called Salem in Tamilnadu. I used to be a decent chess player, participating in various school tournaments, winning many. I didn’t have any coach to guide me. I became good at it due to continuous practice at home with my father and brother. I didn’t know then how to record the game (chess notation). I thought it was very tough to learn and hence didn’t make any attempt to learn it.

There was an open chess tournament held in Salem at the state level and I participated. This was the first time I was participating in a big tournament, which had more than 200 players from different schools and different districts. Every player had to play 6 games. The top 8 players would be selected for the knock out matches. I won the first 4 games against various opponents, which included some very good players. Here was the 5th match. If I win this crucial match, I would get a chance to get into the top 8. My opponent for the next match was a girl who was very senior to me from Chennai. It was a very big hall in an indoor stadium and we sat down for the match. She was accompanied by her friend who sat near her. I was all alone. After the initial few moves, I consolidated my position and I knew I was going to win the match. After making a move, I started watching a match which was happening adjacent to us. Taking advantage of this situation, she and her friend removed a couple of my important pieces. When I turned back, I realized that my important pieces were missing. When I asked her, she responded that she didn’t do anything. When I complained to the tournament referee, he asked us to continue the match as it was. With this position, she had the advantage and won the match.

I started crying and narrated this to a well wisher who was a chess coach. He told me that if I had recorded the moves, I wouldn’t have gotten into this position. He immediately taught me how to write the moves. Oh My God! it was not that difficult and I learnt it quickly.

Most of the time we think that learning something is very difficult. But once we learn it we realize how easy it is. This incident is definitely #LittleMeInspiringMe for me. Even today whenever I want to learn something but try to postpone it due to laziness, this incident inspires me and I immediately get into action.