Your Friendly Philosopher & Guide

I had a friend who was/is an avid quizzer and also a good chess player. The problem was not he being good at them, the problem was the ego he used to carry about the same, and the way he used to put down others if they didn’t know answers to questions like - what is the name of Uttaranchal’s governor. Who cares? But he cared a lot. I also heard that after getting married, when he was coming back to Chennai, he gave a quiz book to his wife and made her ask the questions, and he would sit there and answer! Man – he was least interested in understanding what would interest others.

I noticed that he had a great ego about his chess playing capability, and I wanted to break it high time. Once we were discussing about the game of chess, and I asked him why don’t we play a game of chess? He readily agreed. He was already smiling and celebrating about his probable victory.

We were at office, and we decided to play chess on Yahoo Messenger chat window. Thankfully I had installed Chess software in my machine just a couple of days back, and that was the main reason I called him to play outright.

The game started and I asked him to make the first move. He did, and I made the same move on my alternate chess software window. The software would make a move, and I would make the same move on the chat window. To play it safe, I would take a good amount of time to make the software generated move. He lost many, and I was left out with few. And he said – “I think the game is moving towards draw.” For which I replied, “let us play till the end” - for I had great confidence in the SOFTWARE.

Ultimately he was check mated and that was the last day he ever spoke about chess at office. He could not accept defeat at my hands - who never showed off his chess playing capability, and also who refuses to carry pseudo knowledge and useless information on head.

If a crime can bring a positive change – do it!