Culture shock in Delhi
By Sabrina Chevannes
When I heard that the Commonwealth 2015 was going to be held in Delhi,
India, I was very excited to make plans to go. I had never been to India
and it was definitely one of those places I wanted to cross off my list.
In fact, I was visiting the Reykjavik Open in March this year when I was
hanging out with IM Tania Sachdev who insisted I came to visit and combined
it with the tournament. This sounded like the perfect plan and I made arrangements
to make this happen!
On arriving at Delhi Airport, I was hit with 40 degrees of heat –
somewhat contrasting weather to London! However, I was certainly not complaining.
I proceeded to Costa Coffee to purchase a refreshing beverage to be pleasantly
surprised that it cost about 25% of the price it would have in England!
Definitely a good start! The car journey was an interesting one; I learnt
how to drive in South London, where most people describe it as “like
driving in India”, so I was expecting the usual. Boy was I in for
a shock; I will be forever thankful for London’s “awful driving”
after getting on the road in India! There are just no such things as lanes
and all the cars are tooting their horn and getting in each other’s
way.
Plus, there were hundreds of these guys, "auto-rickshaws",
zipping in and out of the place!
Well, I made it to Tania’s place safely where I immediately went
for a nap! Upon waking, I was presented with some amazing Indian food. We
generally have great Indian food in London, but nothing could beat the authentic
stuff! That night, I got to hit my first Delhi nightclub! I wasn’t
sure what to expect to be honest, but it wasn’t too different from
London – just a lot hotter! The club had a kind of tropical feel to
it, though they were serving Sheesha (or shisha, a flavored molasses tobacco
smoked in a hookah) in the outside part of the club – differences
that I wasn’t going to complain about!
Enjoying the Delhi heat outside a nightclub
with IM Tania Sachdev and her childhood friend
There wasn’t too much time for me to explore Delhi before the tournament
and the weather made it simply unbearable to go out properly in the daytime.
So, we headed to the official hotel ready for the tournament, but not before
we had the chance to check out some live music at a local venue! I didn’t
exactly understand the lyrics, but the music was great and the crowd loved
them!
One of the other reasons that I was enticed into playing the Commonwealth
Chess Championships, was the fact that each country gets to nominate players
who get full board in a five star hotel. I was the nominated female from
England and so was definitely looking forward to the luxury accommodation
provided free of charge at the tournament. So, upon checking into the hotel,
imagine my surprise when I am being told that I am actually sharing my room
with two other women! There was some miscommunication because my federation
was led to believe I was getting a single room. I was somewhat troubled
by this, but headed up to my room to check out what I was expecting to be
a suite, so could host three people. However, there was just one bed in
the room! One of my roommates stayed the night before, so she had an extra
foldup bed be put in the corner, but this still meant sharing a bed with
a stranger for the duration of the tournament! The final disturbing straw
was that my bed partner was just a young teenage girl, who looked pretty
scared by the whole situation. Dealing with this issue at ten p.m. at night
when you start a double round day at nine a.m. the next morning was not
the greatest start to a tournament.
Apparently this was normal in India and was to be expected. It certainly
wasn’t normal in England and I was definitely in shock and not impressed!
After much complaining, the organisers managed to rectify the situation
and the Maldivan teenage girl joined her teammates in another hotel nearby,
leaving a sensible number in the room. It was not a single room as expected,
but my roommate was nice and there was just enough space for the two of
us to survive for the tournament.
So, the first round started at nine a.m., which was different from what
was advertised, but we got to grips with the new schedule, which was actually
an improvement. The drama of the tournament already started from round one,
when the arbiter made an announcement of the rules and regulations of the
event, which confused a fair few competitors. Such an announcement which
led to Tania’s shock loss in the first round and Humpy Koneru’s
early departure after round four (see this
report).
However, a new experience did occur for me; as we all start to near time
trouble (since we have no additional time!), the lights kept on going out.
The arbiter would call us to stop the clocks. Then, some UV lights would
come on and then the power would switch back on again. So, the clocks would
start again. A minute later, the same thing would happen. Not only was this
confusing, but it was so off-putting! The lights constantly going on and
off would also give me headaches. But apparently – this was still
all normal!! Most participants continued unfazed by the whole thing; it
was only the foreign players who looked somewhat perturbed by the continuous
power cuts.
After what was clearly a great start to the tournament (!), I then started
to feel sick that night. I thought “Oh great, the usual Delhi belly
that everyone has warned me about!” How wrong I was! I was up all
night being sick and with fevers and generally feeling awful. I couldn’t
believe it – day one and already I was suffering!
By the next morning, I felt like I was going to die! Luckily I had some
great friends at the tournament who were looking after me. I even had medicine
brought to my board the next day! God knows why I continued to play chess
in that state, but I was determined to plough on. However, the usual state
of affairs saw more power cuts and flashing lights the next day too –
not exactly doing wonders for my state!
Sadly the medicine didn’t help too much and I continued to suffer.
Thankfully, the organisers and the hotel were extremely helpful in this
situation and I managed to get a doctor called out to the hotel to check
up on me and give me more suitable medication. However, he took a blood
sample to run it through some tests and the results came back a couple of
days later… Typhoid Fever! Yep!! What a nightmare! Incredible really
considering the hotel provided bottle water each day and there was a water
fountain right outside the tournament hall. However, I forgot about using
tap water when brushing my teeth and drinking drinks with ice in it. So,
I was going to be suffering for the duration of my trip.
So there was not much adventure for me, and I decided to soak up the immediate
environment as the contrast between being in a five star hotel and going
outside was quite vast!
Hotel Park Plaza in New Delhi
The area surrounding the hotel
It might have been sweltering hot, but there
were still areas which were flooded!
Contrasting areas adjacent to the above
The streets always seemed to be lined with
parked vehicles
Inside the local shopping mall
I spent most of the tournament suffering indoors though, whilst trying
to recover. At least there was still some exciting chess being played at
the top.
I caught up with Abhijeet Gupta at the end of round six, when he was on
a perfect score and most people were saying that he clearly had the tournament
in the bag. However, we reminisced (somewhat painfully for Abhijeet) about
last year’s tournament in Glasgow when he started off in the same
way, but suddenly it went quite sour. So, in round seven, he was pretty
focused against last year’s winner Deep Sengupta and found himself
winning remarkably easily, taking him to a perfect 7/7! Now it was Deep
who had to watch Abhijeet take home his trophy, as he drew his last games
rather easily, bringing him to an amazing 8.0/9 and taking home the Commonwealth
title.
Top final rankings (after nine rounds)
GM Abhijeet Gupta takes gold, GM Arghyadip
Das takes silver and GM Babu Lalith takes bronze.
However, Abhijeet didn’t get to keep his medal for long …
... he lent it to me to celebrate my fake Commonwealth
victory!
IM Padmini Rout in action in round seven
Meanwhile, in the women’s championships, with Humpy out of the competition,
it made things a rather interesting event. Rout Padmini was always favourite
as top seed and with Tania’s upset in round one. However, IM Padmini,
IM Subbaraman and WGM Meenakshi all found themselves on an amazing 7.0/9.
By tie-break, Rout took the gold medal, being unbeaten in the whole tournament.
However, both Meedakshi and Subbaraman had the most incredible finishes,
both winning all six of their last six games!
After resting for a few days in bed and not playing chess at all, I decided
to try and join my friends to celebrate their victories and enjoy my last
night in India. Whilst the event was quite a culture shock for me and various
incidents were rather alarming, all in all it was an interesting experience
and I wouldn’t have been able to survive without the kindness of many.
Would I go back? Well, perhaps try asking me again once I’m fully
over this fever!
Pictures by Sabrina Chevannes and Helen Milligan
