Life & lifestyle of Vishwanathan Anand

Vishwanathan Anand has said that It has been like a dream for the past two weeks.

          

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Himanshu Singhal of CNN-IBN looked into the life and lifestyle of the phenomenon called Vishwanathan Anand who at 37 not only continues to win Chess titles but hearts as well.

"It’s been like a dream for the past two weeks, the day I won Lenarus is the day I became world number one. It was in Mexico, the day I won Mexico, I crossed 2800. I would have been happy with one of the three but all three and then the fantastic reception, both in Delhi and Chennai," said Anand.

"From the time I know Anand, he has been always. He has remained unaffected in both victory and defeat. If he has had a bad string of tournaments, it takes longer for him to come back. But what he did in Mexico, you could see that he is really happy," says Aruna Anand, Vishwanathan Anand’s wife.

Anand was particularly pleased with the reception he received on his homecoming. "It was fantastic to see just how many school children had come there at the airport, it must have been really tough for them, it was pretty hot but they stayed there. And the same in Delhi at one’o clock there was a pretty big turnout. And they were enthusiastic as well and the media was jostling for space. It looked kind of rockstarish. I was pretty touched," he said.

"He was not troublesome, he used to do the usual boy mischief and he had brothers and sisters, who were much older to him, so it was really fun, all took part in the fun," said Anand’s father on his childhood.

Susheela Vishwanathan, Anand’s mother added, "He had only friends who were boys, he was very shy of girls. He would rather play with boys than with girls."

"He played table-tennis but he showed interest in chess, he was the only person who liked chess. My wife knew chess and so she could initiate him into the game. And he picked up interest," said Anand’s father on how Anand got into the game which has won him accolades all over the world.

"I qualified for one thing after the other. I qualified for the national sub-junior and then won it. I qualified for the national junior championship and I won it. In the earlier years, I was not even in contention for the first place and then it all happened in a flash, 82-83 were my breakthrough years," said Anand.