Rohini Khadilkar becomes an International Woman Master with her Accumax Asian Women's Championship win

Rohini is the brightening star on the Indian chess firmament. The youngest of Bombay's Khadilkar sisters, Rohini continues her steady climb and is now an International Woman Master (IWM) with her win at the inaugural Accumax Asian Women's Championship in Hyderabad last fortnight. In a game where victory demands persistence, endurance and an iron will, the players are normally under tremendous tension - and this time, so were the organisers. At least 12 players need to take part if the winner is to earn the IWM at a continental championship. The organisers were in a quandary until two participants from the Philippines arrived - only after the championship had formally got underway. With their joining in, the number of competitors rose to 13.With 10 wins in as many matches, Rohini made sure of getting the Indira Gandhi Rolling Trophy and title. But it was after some anxious moments in the adjourned tenth game that she won against Rani Hamid of Bangladesh. Later, she drew the game with Lai Fung Chan of Singapore and scored 11.5 points - one point for a win and half for a draw - out of a possible 12 in the 13-player round robin. Jayashree, her elder sister, played consistently to finish with a score of nine while Hamid came third and Chan fourth, both scoring 8.5 points.Male Stronghold: Rohini, whose ambition is to become a Grandmaster and then turn a journalist, made a fiery chess entry in May 1978 at the Kottayam Nationals. It all began with the All India Chess Federation banning her from competing in the Nationals because she was a woman. But her father, Nilakanth Khadilkar, editor of the Marathi daily Navakal, took the issue to the Federation International des Echecs (FIDE) and also the Government.Rohini (right) in action: Coping with male resentmentAfter this, the Indian organisers agreed rather reluctantly to let Rohini into the male stronghold. Though she did not fare as well as expected, Rohini proved her worth later the same year by winning the All India Open Chess Championships at Hospet in Karnataka, in which several ranked men players competed. Rohini, who has been playing chess since the age of eight, will now defend the national women's title in Delhi this month.Many male players continue to dislike participation of women in what they call the men's championships. They contend that the women's standards are low. They feel that with women also joining in for the Nationals, the men are in an unenviable position in a psychological war..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;} But with Rohini earning the IWM title, the women's chess movement has got a shot in the arm because their performance now is more impressive than that of men. India has two international masters among women, Jayashree being the other, in just a couple of years. In contrast, among the men, in the last 20 years, only Manuel Aaron and Ravi Sekhar have gained that honour.But today interest in the game has dwindled to such a large extent that chess now ranks between Softball and khokho in popularity. Asked to name a chess player, the common man will recall American Bobby Fischer and possibly his eccentricities at Reykjavik during his clash with Boris Spassky for the world title in 1972. Few can remember the names of Indian champions. Apart from disinterest, this is also because hardly any player remains at the top for more than a year or two. This is not so much for want of acumen as the dire need to work for a living. Top-ranking players in other countries, on the other hand, can afford to throw themselves into the game fulltime.Ego Problems: The Khadilkars skipped a year at school to improve their game for competitive chess. "Our father plays with us for an hour each morning. Other players in town come home for three-hour evening sessions," says Rohini, 17, a first year inter student at Bombay's Wilson College. Constant practice is essential for sharpening memory and also for quick analysis. These qualities are essential in a game where the permutations and combinations of possible moves are countless. According to a computer estimate if every man, woman and child in the world were to spend every waking hour playing at the superhuman rate of a game a minute. It would still take 217 billion years to exhaust all the variations of the first 10 moves.While there have been no attempts to popularise chess in India, the contribution of the Khadilkars to women's chess is being decried by some. They argue that the national championship for women has not left the Khadilkar home since the inaugural year in 1974. Vasanthi, the eldest, won the title that year, Jayashree the next year and Rohini from 1976 onwards. The number of contestants has risen from a handful to about 50 now. This does indicate the growing number of women players because only four are allowed to participate from each state in the Nationals.Few men players unlike Nasiruddin Ghalib, who coached Rohini and then lost to her in tournaments, are in favour of open contests. The FIDE's General Assembly at its Buenos Aires meeting in 1978 appointed a commission for promoting women's chess. Ghalib, the first to be voted to it, is now the only male member on the commission. After successfully supervising the first Asian women's championship, Ghalib is ready to make important moves to promote women's chess. Says he: "Most of our male players are afraid of bruising their egos by losing to a woman. By playing against men, the women could do well at internationals. And if India is to reach the top in chess in the next 20 or 30 years it will certainly be women and not men who will do it. Our men have memory and concentration but lack imagination and vision. Neither can they win nor do they want to allow others to win."Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 27, 2013--- ENDS ---

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Rohini Khadilkar becomes an International Woman Master with her Accumax Asian Women's Championship win

Rohini is the brightening star on the Indian chess firmament. The youngest of Bombay's Khadilkar sisters, Rohini continues her steady climb and is now an International Woman Master with her win at the inaugural Accumax Asian Women's Championship in Hyderabad.

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