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20-year-old Darpan Inani (2041) is 100% visually impaired. This has however not affected his hunger for excellence. He was the National Blind champion in the year 2010 and won a bronze medal at the 2013 World Junior Blind championship. He has also featured in the award winning chess documentary Algorithms. Not only that, he is also pursuing a very competitive educational course called the Chartered Accountancy. In the picture above you can see his mother Vimala by his side who accompanies him to all the tournaments and is his biggest supporter.
The best players from the state of Maharashtra: (left to right) Aniruddh Deshpande (2280), Atul
Dahale (2155). Back row from left to right: Abhishek Kelkar (2319), Sameer Kathmale (2345),
Chinmay Kulkarni (2249), Rakesh Kulkarni (2224) who had a great tournament gaining 25 Elo points.
Swapnil Kothari (2033) from Mumbai is a top notch lawyer. His passion
for the game made him fight battles off the board in the morning and
on the board in the evenings!
No one can distract him! S Yogit (2030)
"You don't know the power of the dark side..."
The organizing committee of the Mumbai Mayor’s Cup worked very hard to make this event successful.
The Author of these lines sitting inside Mumbai’s favourite mode of transport: the auto-rickshaw
Road side tea-stalls are very common in Mumbai. A glass of this refreshing drink also known
as chai is available for as little as Rs 5 (approx. US$0.08!).
A roadside cobbler who has quite some variety of footwear. When I told him that his picture
would be published on ChessBase he picked up the newspaper by his side and started reading it!
This stall sells one of the most popular snacks in Mumbai: Vada Pav, a popular spicy vegetarian fast food dish
Vada Pav consists of fritters made of Potato in the middle compressed between unsweetened
bun. It is also known as the Indian Burger. While a Burger in Mcdonald’s costs around 50 Rs
(approx. US$ 0.85) in India, the Vada Pav is just Rs.10! ($ 0.17)
The most popular monument of Mumbai: Gateway of India. The structure was erected to
commemorate the landing of their Majesties King George V and Queen Mary at Apollo
Bunder, when they visited India in 1911. (picture from Wikipedia)
The Mumbai Mayor’s Cup is going strong. Next year will be the eighth edition of this tournament. Hoping that my hometown tournament will be stronger and witness many more International participants.
All the above pictures have been clicked by Amruta Mokal who is a not
only an enthusiastic photographer but also a professional chess player
with an ELO of 2043 and 4 WIM norms. Clicking pictures is her passion
and she loves to cover tournaments capturing various expressions and
emotions of the chess players so engrossed in the game. She is also
the wife of the author of this article, Sagar Shah.
