The chess fever that has gripped the country which is hosting the 44th Chess Olympiad appears to have rubbed off on the unlikeliest of places — a police station.
Intriguing names like the En Passant capture, Sicilian Defence and Queen’s Gambit echo in the halls of the Fort ‘child-friendly’ police station in Thiruvananthapuram that has become a training centre for budding chess players.
An assistant sub-inspector (ASI) is donning the role of a chess coach at the station and the initiative has attracted nearly 50 students within a week of its launch.
The trainees hail from economically disadvantaged families at Karimadom colony, Chala and other localities that are known for their high crime and school dropout rates. The police view the endeavour, launched by Fort Assistant Commissioner S. Shaji and Inspector J. Rakesh, as one that could provide students a sense of purpose.
Skill enhancer
ASI V. Ajayakumar, the ‘coach’ who is in charge of the child-friendly police station, vouches for the role of chess in enhancing the skills of children. “Chess is scientifically proven to instil 18 cognitive skills and nine non-cognitive skills. The game, despite being a non-active sport, benefits children by boosting their concentration, decision-making and scientific-reasoning skills, and strategic-thought process. It is high time that the game is included in the school curriculum as advocated by our chess icon Viswanathan Anand,” says the officer who has been associated with the Student Police Cadet project of the Kerala Police for nine years.
Yuggaruphan, a Class 5 student of Government Higher Secondary School at Punnamoodu in the district, hopes to follow his idol Anand’s footsteps. Initiated into the world of chess by his father at the age of five, he harbours the dream of becoming a Grandmaster one day.
An unsatisfied Ajayakumar eggs him on to represent the country at a Chess Olympiad.
