Anand arrives to a hero's welcome

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 29. On this cold Friday morning, the reception accorded to Viswanathan Anand at the Indira Gandhi International Airport fell grossly short of matching the `rousing' ones extended to Olympic bronze medallists, Leander Paes in 1996 and more recently, to Karnam Malleswari.

Anand's feat of winning the World Chess Championship is no doubt, unparalleled in the history of Indian sport, but then, missing was the home-coming meant for such a champion. Perhaps, much was left for Chennai. After all, a boisterous welcome at the airport, complete with drum-beats and motorcade takes some effort to be organised. But it was occasion such as this when no effort should have been spared. It was a indeed a great opportunity missed.

Considering that Anand's flight from Dubai had landed almost six and a half hours behind schedule, perhaps, it was a blessing in disguise that the champion did not have to go through much. A few journalists, clearly outnumbering the officials from the All India Chess Federation and the Delhi Chess Association, sought Anand's time. It was all over in less than 15 minutes.

President, Mahajan praise achievement

Mercifully, during the day, Anand, wife Aruna and trainer Elizbar Ubilava got a fair idea of the love and affection showered by those present during the two felicitation functions. In between, the trio called on the President, Mr. K.R. Narayanan.

During the course of this 10-hour stop-over on his way to Chennai, Anand was feted by his sponsor, NIIT, at an impressive function where the Chief Guest was the Minister of Information Technology, Mr. Pramod Mahajan.

The Minister's speech, laced with plenty of humour, drew repeated applause. Interestingly, the Minister observed that though in cricket, too, India was World Champion, but Anand's achievement stood apart. ``There are many who are proud to be Indians, but Anand, with his victory, has made all of us feel proud to be Indians.''

Less than two hours later, at the same hall, Delhi's Chief Minister, Ms. Shiela Dikshit presented a memento to Anand on behalf of AICF. This function was made a memorable one by the decision of the AICF President, Mr. Dhruv Sawhney, to transport 200 players from Ghaziabad, where they were taking part in the an international rating tournament.

The decision served dual purpose: it ensured a full house and also gave an opportunity to the players, including several of Anand's contemporaries like International Masters Neeraj Kumar Mishra, N. Sudhakar Babu, Anup Deshmukh among others, to give a thundering round of applause to the champion.

A `very flatttered' Anand, on his part, thanked the players for their gesture and even took time off to sign autographs. All this, when he was being asked to hurry in order to catch a flight to Chennai.

``I guess, I paid it back in a small measure,'' said Anand when refering to his World Championship triumph and continued, ``I am happy it all came together in this event.''

Earlier in the day, Anand admitted he was still to get used to the prefix `World Champion.' It is understandable. These are still early days and it does take time for certain things to sink in. The bigger it is, the longer it takes. ``I am getting used to it. I know it is something different but can't quite place it,'' was how Anand chose to put it.

Not a one-sided final

Anand, like several days in the past, reiterated that the final against Alexei Shirov was far from one- sided as suggested by the 3.5-0.5 scoreline.

``It was tough and very intense. His (Shirov's) style dictated the way it went, it went in four games. But had he been a more cautious player, it might have gone in six. Not to say that it was easy at all, but obviously, it's great if you've wrapped it up in four games.'' In Anand's admission, the rest day after the third game was the most difficult part of final. ``The rest day was, probably, the toughest of the match, because, the whole day I sat and waited for the day to finish and start playing again. I couldn't handle the rest day, more than anything else.''

When quizzed about his narrow escape against Alexander Khalifman, Anand said, ``I prefer not to think about it. I am sure, I'll have a shiver in my spine if I see the rook endgame again. It's just that its better not to look at it again.''

On the possibility of facing Vladimir Kramnik in, what is being dubbed as a `World Prestige Match,' Anand's reply was, ``if at some point, there is an offer on the table, I'll think about it. But basically, it is not something that I am looking for. This (the World title) is what I was working for.''

A certain symbolism

Anand saw a certain symbolism in the fact that he won when India hosted the meet. ``I must say, it turned out very symbolic. There were lot of coincidences. One is, it (the game) began in India, it spread through Persia to Europe. And this World Championship was held in New Delhi and Teheran. You can string a few more facts together. But I'll admit: there is some sybolism there... its quite nice, quite poetic.''

In lighter vein, Anand also mentioned how `annoyed' he was with what he read in one of the Dubai dailies. ``They were basically, incredibly nice about me. But I was really annoyed when in one of the papers in Dubai which I read had four paragraphs of praise but a bit that I didn't like was...``the chubby 31-year-old from...'' That was really mean.

After this hectic day, it was clear that Anand was truly overwhelmed by the love and affection he received. On the other hand, the humble ways of Anand was for everyone present to admire, remember and recall.

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