How chess games at a teastall helped a Kerala village fight alcoholism

Keralites drink an average of 8.3 litres of alcohol per person annually, soaring past the national average of 5.7 litres. This craze for booze makes liver cirrhosis common, with villages plagued by domestic violence, hooch tragedies, debt traps and crime. These troubles have long existed, in tragic contrast to an otherwise blissful environs dotted by scenic waterfalls and lush green hillscapes.

Tiered waterfalls at Marottichal (Photo by Anee Jose/Wikimedia Commons)

Marottichal is one such sleepy hillside village located in the Thrissur district. In the 1960s and 70s, like many others in the region, the village would begin to suffer from illicit brewing and gambling issues. Rampant unemployment led locals to start brewing liquor from cashew fruits — its potency, inevitably, would render a significant part of the population into alcoholics, affecting their day-to-day and family relations. Street squabbles and hooliganism became a common sight. 

C Unnikrishnan (some joke that the ‘C’ stands for chess), who had left his job in Bengaluru to run a tea shop in the village, was witness to this growing depravity. While involved in anti-alcohol movements, he noticed how villagers who saw him playing chess on the streets would gaze puzzled, wanting to know more. He then realised that he could share his love for chess as a means to divert people’s attention, providing a new obsession to consume the mind. 

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Unnikrishnan soon began teaching chess to anyone who was curious, and word quickly spread. Tipplers on their way to secure booze—sometimes, brewers themselves—would encounter hordes of people on the streets, engrossed, and would join in to play for hours. 

Today, Unnikrishnan estimates that over 80% of the residents know how to play the game. Chess has become a generational hobby here, with at least one person from each family knowing the game. This amounts to more than 4000 people in the nearly 1500 families that call the village home. Unnikrishnan’s tea shop—the place where it all began—also continues to host a ‘chai pe chess’, which brings in young, zealous debutants.

Kids enjoy a game of chess at C Unnikrishnan’s tea shop, a designated game spot open to all.

If you were to visit Marottichal today (it is also a well-known monsoon destination), the roadsides continue to be huddled by chess enthusiasts — be it bus drivers, school students or homemakers. ‘Unni maaman’ (Unni uncle), as the villagers fondly call him, continues to teach the game to four-year-olds as well as septuagenarian grandfathers who’d like to constructively pass their time.

What are Marottichal’s future plans?

Marottichal has a dedicated chess association in place today, and their larger aim is to teach chess to every villager, making this India’s first 100% chess-literate village. The association also hopes to add chess to school curricula, so that children may learn the ways of the knight and bishop along with their ABCDs. Funding and support from authorities is required to pave this yellow brick road, says Vineesh, a member of the association. 

Journalists from around the globe have visited Marottichal to experience this ‘chess village’.

Encouraging professional players is also part of the picture, and this dream is already bearing fruit. Fifteen-year-old Gowrishankar Jayaraj, one of Unnikrishnan’s disciples, scored big in the 2023 Kerala State Under-15 Open Chess Championship, nearing a 2000 Elo rating. The village has also received an Asia Records recognition for over one thousand people playing chess simultaneously. With chairs and boards stretched across more than 1.5 kilometres, the grand event helped cement Marottichal’s position as a place to watch on the world chess map. 

Games as therapy for addiction

Brain games like chess, sudoku and crosswords are known to have an array of cognitive benefits — from improving memory and concentration, to helping slow down cognitive decline in older individuals. Habits of big-picture thinking in these games also boost one’s logical reasoning and problem-solving skills.

Marottichal is a rare organic case study for India, but they’re not the first to adopt play as a means of addiction therapy. Stimulating games that keep the mind and body busy have long been used by NGOs that work in de-addiction.

Srinagar-based football team Downtown Heroes FC was founded in 2020 to wean vulnerable Kashmiri youngsters away from drugs. They provide high-quality training to build a culture of discipline and sportsmanship for at-risk youth. In 2023, the club went on to qualify for the Durand Cup, one of India’s oldest club tournaments. 

Other programmes that use games as a form of intervention include STAIRS Against Drugs (national presence), ‘Project Venda’ by Bengaluru’s Fourthwave Foundation, and the Kavita Vinod Khanna Foundation in Punjab. Several sportspersons across the globe have also spoken out about how the games they loved helped them overcome addiction, such as WWE star Eddie Guerrero, footballer Andros Townsend, and Olympic long jumper Luvo Manyonga.

For chess in particular, Spain has made pioneering strides in using the game effectively for behavioural therapy. In Extremadura, training centres exist for both civil society and prison inmates, with sessions that help improve working memory, attention and coordination.

As India’s chess footprint grows, Marottichal’s story highlights the possibilities of this game in helping lift up the very place it was born, delivering more prodigies, accolades and most importantly, hope, to a troubled generation. “Chess…builds character and creates community,” Association President Baby John once told the BBC. “We don’t watch television here.”

All photographs featuring people are courtesy of Mr C Unnikrishnan.