Start of Sarthaks chess journey

          It was the winter of 2016, Christmas time in Canada with snow all over the place and temperatures getting super cold. As Deepa had taught Sarthak to show 110 countries and flags when he was just 2 years old, she was very confident about him learning chess. She was already pestering me to take interest and start teaching chess to Sarthak.  We could not go outside much due to weather conditions and had holidays, so I started playing chess with him. We were amazed by his grasping ability and he was able to pick all the rules very quickly.  Initially we taught him only 2 types of checkmates.

         After doing some net surfing we realized that there is chess tournament every month in Kitchener and we got bold and decided to take Sarthak there. He was 4 and half years old and could draw 2 matches out of 5 against much older opponents. He was too small and had to stand up on the chair to move pieces at the far end. The president of the Kitchener chess board Patrick and Eva encouraged him and gave a medal for being the youngest participant. This was a turning point for us and we realized that we should put more efforts on Sarthaks chess.

          Being an ardent fan of people like Sachin and Dravid who were technically very sound in their game; we wanted our kids to stick to the basics and learn the technique of whichever game they played rather than using haphazard methods to succeed. So we approached Andrew Peredun Sir, the coach of Canadian National youth team and requested him to take Sarthak in his coaching classes. He did not show much interest initially and felt that Sarthak was too young to learn chess. Then we came across a youtube video of Viswanathan Anand and got to learn about the opening concepts of the chess. Sarthaks game drastically improved after teaching these basic techniques learnt from Anand’s video.

We took him to Breslau for Waterloo region interschool tournament. Sarthak was in junior kindergarten and was participating in the first grade students group. At that time, we told Andrew sir to observe his games in the tournament and see if he can be taken in for coaching. Sarthak played brilliantly and stood second in the first grade section and won hearts of all the participants. He got a silver medal from Andrew Sir himself.

http://www.oycc.ca/wrcc/17results.htm

         We were motivated by Kitchener Waterloo Chess club to take Sarthak to the Ontario provincials to Mississauga and his coaching classes started with Andrew Sir. Andrew was very impressed by Sarthaks level of commitment and he offered some free teaching classes to him. KW chess president Patrick Sir told us that Sarthaks chess game is really good. Sarthak use to travel by bus in very cold weather and attend the class after a long tiring day at school. The class had some fun staff like after solving some set of puzzles and after attending every class; some chester points were given to each student. After collecting 400-500 points usually kids use to buy cookies or toys by trading their chester points. However, Sarthak wanted a chess set and he earned and accumulated 10000 points by solving 100 pages’ puzzle book to earn it. Till date he is using the same chess set and has not lost a single piece out of it. We use to invite our neighbors and Infosys friends to play practice matches against Sarthak. Many a times Ameya, Mazhar, Avinash, Jitu, Harsh had to pretend as if they were losing the match to encourage Sarthak. Eventually Sarthak started growing stronger and stronger and some of these guys started really losing matches against him.

            In the Ontario provincials Sarthak was again the youngest player in the entire tournament and his section too. He played the best match of his life till date by competing with top seed for more than an hour. During this one hour match the arbiters, organizer came out twice and told us that Sarthak and his opponent are playing a very impressive, intense tight match inside. His expressions after coming out were priceless and I still remember his words “Baba mi jinklo” aka “Papa I won”. After completing 5 games; 3 kids were tied for first place and Sarthak lost in the tiebreak and eventually stood third as he had no idea of the time control and forgot to press the clock in the blitz tiebreak game. We were all excited after he got a big trophy at provincial level. The KW chess club had requested us for Sarthaks photographs to display them in Kitchener Art Gallery sports section.

       By this time, we had decided to move back to India. We moved back carrying these precious memories and tons of confidence on Sarthak’s chess skills.

Sarthak Childhood

My Dear Sarthak!!!

Well I have been lucky to experience absolute bliss and innocence for last 3 years. Thought of penning down some thoughts so that I will refer to this later.

While Sarthak enters his lower KG classes todaay, lets take a moment to go through some of glimpses of the journey so far

There was something special his Ajoba spotted in him from the day he saw him. He has the natural gift of the spreading joy and being joyful all the time. It was observed right from first day. 30-Jun-2012 an auspicious day of Ashadhi Ekadashi and our wedding anniversary was chosen to bring him home.

In the sixth month he had a stomach infection and was told to get off feeding and was not advised to take milk. The way he cooperated for those 2 days was amazing. Even now I struggle to have Soy milk. The first tensed moments were when he fell down from the sofa while his competitor Rajani Attya had come to visit him from Mysore. We were not sure how to react as we had never seen him crying that long till then,

In the 9th month he came to Canada. How could I forget the smile he gave after looking at me sitting in the stroller completely tired after a 24 hour journey. Adapting to any situation, location and circumstances seems to be his natural strength. He got adapted to Canadian weather easily. We started to realize that he is extremely fond of people. He could build his own relationships and connect with people individually at that age. He could entertain people of different age groups.Time went on nicely as we were lucky to get good neighbors who still belong to his fan club. Prashant (pashaa) Seema (Aaau), Dhana (Daddu) Shiva, Ruby (Dubby) and Gulshan (Chacha) were his favorite. Seema masi started speaking him and he started responding regularly learning first word ball (baa)

Sarthak turned one year old and then the first real mark where I could felt something really special came on.Time had come to get him off feeding and Deepa kept telling him about it for a week. One fine day feeding was stopped and he never complained cried. Well it showed he could grasp what Deepa taught him at that age and he showed how determined he was. Next he was told not to enter bathroom as he could lock the door accidentally and get alone inside. He never entered the bathroom after that unless told specifically.



Realizing that he responds very well, Deepa started getting ambitious and teaching him colors, alphabets, numbers and more and more stuff. I started teaching him cricket, running and introduced him to Indian classical music. I started enjoying the "waahhhhh" he use to say after finishing a classical song more than the song. Deepa got a printout of the world map and flags of countries. By the age of 18 months, Sarthak showed 23 countries without making any mistake. The learning continued for next 3 months and by now Sarthak was showing 110 counties on a world map and identifying the flags of these 110 countries.People around got to know about this story and one of Yash's friend visited Sarthak. He thought of making fun of Sarthak and asked him where is Namibia/Somalia on the map and Sarthak showed them with ease leaving the person in total awe.

We were lucky to meet Scientist Jayant Naralikar and Mangala Naralikar in Waterloo. Sarthak showed all the flags and got a chance to take ashirwad from such imminent personalities. Mangala kaku made a cake for Sarthak on his second birthday and got home.

Once Deepa was taking him in pram to Walmart, a lady met Sarthak and Sarthak gave a very cute smile. She told Deepa that she has lost her job today but Sarthak's smile has made her day.

Sarthak never broke any stuff or threw any things around. He was always reasonable and never stubborn. He was a cheerful naughty kid though. While eating cherries he had put one of the seeds in his nose which got stuck. We had to rush him to a walk-in clinic. The doctor could not take out the seed after trying a lot and we had to rush to Grand River Hospital emergency. It took 3 hours total by the time the seed came out of his nose. I still fear to bring home cherries or eat cherry after this incident. Thank God everything was fine.

Overall he was fabulous, very obedient and a pure bundle of joy at this age. After his second birthday Sarthak had to go to India for few months. He was very attached to his cousins Mukta and Nivedita there spending majority of the time with them. His and his Ajoba were a famous pair in the society now playing cricket, swing, slide etc in the gardens around our campus. He joined the smart kids nursery school. He got to meet his first school friend Arpit here. Sarthak started participating actively in all the school activities and came first in the running competition in the school and won his first "gold" medal here :).

Sarthak turned 2.5 years old and was now told that he is going to be an elder brother "Dada". During second delivery Deepa had to be admitted in the hospital for 5 days and Sarthak happily stayed with his cousins during this period. He was lucky to get exposure to both the worlds (India and Canada). He got to stay in a joint family kind of environment during this period with Govind Ajoba and Deepa's Attya at home and cousins around.

Then came the lil one Rucha Deshpande. It was again amazing the way Sarthak accepted her. We had heard about the elder sibling getting more possessive on parents or getting a feeling of not getting neglected. Deepa had mentored him wonderfully and Sarthak started sharing some responsibilities and taking care of his younger sister. The maturity he use to show at this age was incredible. He use to get off Deepa's lap as soon as he could hear Rucha crying and use to ask Deepa to look after Rucha first.

Then the journey back to Canada started and Sarthak was close to 3 now and Rucha was 4 months old. Sarthak was trained to hold the stroller and walked on the airports. He knew that he was not going to get picked up by Deepa although he was sleepy at times as Deepa had to carry luggage and Rucha. After reaching Canada his 3rd birthday was a big celebration.

I boast about my rational thought process in front of Deepa especially many a times but I know I get irrational when it comes to Sarthak and a very few other people. I don't want to put undue pressure on Sarthak and predict how he will turn out to be but the journey so far has been outstanding. Thanks for making the last few years truly fulfilling (aka Sarthak)


---Yashodhan (Waterloo) 16-Aug-2016