Kochi: When the Kerala HSE results were declared at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, S.L. Narayanan, 18, had just sat down at the second board of the Asian junior open chess championship in New Delhi and made his first move – d4. Within the next three hours, one might imagine the majority of the 4.6 lakh HSE students had known their results, but Narayanan, who had also written the exams, was still busy playing.
Soon Narayanan would play the winning move 36. Rb7, forcing West Bengal’s Rajdeep Sarkar to resign. With the game won, Narayanan’s father Sunilduth, who was in the audience, told him about something else he had won. At that moment, the student from Thiruvananthapuram realised that he had passed the HSE with 100 per cent marks. Narayanan, a Humanities student of St. Mary’s HSS Pattom, had scored a perfect 1200/1200.
Interestingly, Narayanan who became Kerala’s second and India’s 40th Grandmaster in Chess last November has achieved the rare feat with just two months of schooling. He could not attend regular classes because he was playing tournaments both in India and abroad.
The only other examination he could write in the whole academic year was the model tests given as preparation for the final examination. Narayanan had also secured 100 per cent marks in his 10th standard examinations.
At 17, he had surpassed G.N. Gopal, Kerala’s first and only other Grandmaster in chess, as the youngest from the state to achieve the title. On Wednesday, should Narayanan beat Iranian Mousavi Seyed Khalil in the final round of the Asian Junior, he’ll be crowned champion. Now, how’s that for a double delight?
