Cereb Circuit

I was also warned, through an evil combo of smirk and sly wit, to not cause an upset. The only person who thought, thoroughly oblivious to my lack of expertise at chess, that I could probably make a good fight out of it was this little woman, Humpy’s public relations in-charge. “Oh, she’s here for only two days. Hope this won’t take much time,” she’d chirped over the phone the previous day. Oh, blind innocence!

Humpy, meanwhile, made her way towards me, having finished off with a gaggle of photographers. The impossibly introverted 16-year old, whose sheer prowess at the game has prompted calls for one common world championship for both the sexes, asked me to start the proceedings. But ever chivalrous, I let her do the honours.

The pawn on her side marched confidently in line with my king. A counter from my end saw my foot soldier from around the middle diffidently shuffling across. Humpy’s next assault—with her queen not too far from my fortress—made my king a little iffy. A valiant knight and a soft-in-the-head pawn managed to delay the inevitable, but were both martyred as her marauding army started its advance. Just about 30 seconds had elapsed.

In the blink of an eye, which, incidentally, was all I was doing, she’d also got her bishops and a knight deep into my territory, all of them baying for my king’s fat head.

And then, out of the blue, came a master move from my side, wherein I put my remaining knight as bait and when Humpy bit it, kicked her bishop’s rump with my doughty rook. It was a moment of sheer genius, of deep thought and brilliant intuition—which would, had he witnessed it, have made that reclusive former world champ Bobby Fischer scramble out of self-imposed exile. After all, here was a thinking man worth taking on.

There should be a name for that move—you know, like Sicilian Defence or Sveshnikov Opening or some high-sounding stuff like that—it’s that fundamental.

Amidst all that gloating of mine, Humpy was swiftly demolishing my other court members. She had a photo-shoot right after the game.

The massacre happened very quietly, with a scary machine-like efficiency, and my kamikaze moves only helped her cause. Soon, I had more pieces outside the board than on it, with all those big-talking, strategising bishops, knights and their uncles in chains and tatters. A fat lot they did!

Humpy’s father, standing nearby, was fidgeting, thinking about the photo-shoot and a long evening ahead.

Just as he was about to ask his daughter to do more constructive things, I requested him to let us finish the game, let her finish me off—gallant even in the jeering face of defeat.

My agony ended right after that. One of her pawns had crossed over to my side—which made it a queen—and with her other queen already strutting around in my half, those dreaded words were soon spoken. My corpulent king was shown the exit.

The time taken to vanquish me was about three minutes and 47 seconds. Which means that, were one to look at the brighter side of life, I’m smarter than I look.