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PHOTO Shaju John

KNIGHT AND LADY Anand and Aruna

So she chose a less nerve-wracking alternative: “I started waiting in the toilet while he was playing,” she says laughing. “He would come and call me when he had finished, and I’d just keep looking at his face for a sign on how he’d done. He teases me saying that he’d never seen such a blank face in his life!”

Not quite your typical honeymoon. But then her husband isn’t your typical guy. For Grandmaster and current undisputed World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand, travelling six to seven months in a year to tournaments and spending several hours a day intensely focused on a 64-square board in training or in competition is perfectly normal.

And after 12 years of marriage, it’s all par for the course for Aruna too. They sit down for the interview in their cheerful Chennai flat with just two hours to go for a flight to Delhi (for Anand to receive the Padma Vibhushan), but they’re both relaxed and there’s plenty of good-humoured laughter as they chat about what makes them work as a couple.

“I think it’s her sense of humour that keeps us going,” says Anand candidly. “I’m in another world during tournaments, and her ability to laugh off the things I do makes life a lot easier.”

According to Aruna, he has a knack of simplifying the situation and putting things in perspective, which is great, for example, when a flight gets cancelled and she’s getting all paranoid. But sometimes, all that calm logic can be maddening. “After a wedding one night, I was terrified I hadn’t put all my jewels back in the locker,” she says. “Anand says, ‘well, if you left them out, the next guy has taken them. If not, they’ll be there tomorrow,’ and turns over and falls asleep.”

“A moment later I realised that was probably not a good thing to have said,” says Anand ruefully.

Over a period of time, a division of responsibilities evolved between them where Aruna handles everyday tasks from packing for travel to scheduling his media engagements, while he focuses on the chess. “It was just practical, because he trains such long hours and is often thinking sub-consciously about the game,” she says, adding jokingly, “I realised the marriage would just last longer this way.”

She still doesn’t know much about the game, but they do share a common love for travel and food. Anand rattles off a long list of cuisines they’ve tried — Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Sri Lankan, Mexican, Italian, French, Spanish — but pre-emptively rejects the title ‘foodie’. “It suggests a certain lack of control,” he says with characteristic dry wit.

They try and fit in short vacations in between tournaments, such as a city-break in Berlin and trips within Mexico or Brazil. One of their best experiences in recent times was at the Victoria Falls in South Africa (though they did lose a camera to the spray), and Anand would love to go back to Iceland, which he calls a ‘unique earthscape’ of volcanoes and geysers.

But they always make it back to Chennai for two or three months annually; unfortunately, it’s usually during the hottest time of the year. “Every year I tell myself I’ll come at another time, and every year April-May ends up being when I’m free,” Anand says.

So where’s home? It’s a question they find hard to answer. “I suppose whichever hotel room you’ve thrown your clothes about in becomes home temporarily,” says Aruna. They do have a home in the idyllic little Spanish town of Collado Mediano though, which they use as a base. “There are only about 5000 people in that town; it’s a completely different experience from living in Chennai,” says Anand. The town in turn has taken to the couple completely, and Anand is treated like an adopted son. “They have pictures of him in every shop; the vegetable shop even has one of him buying tomatoes,” says Aruna laughing.

It’s easy to see why they’re so taken with this down-to-earth pair. The relationship that began with a honeymoon at Dortmund has matured, and like fine wine, it just seems to have gotten better with the passing years.

The fun facts

Both Aruna and Anand are fluent in Spanish. Anand speaks German and French as well

Anand unwinds by doing Sudoku (which Aruna says he’s annoyingly good at). He’s planning on taking up advanced 3-D Sudoku next.

Anand listens to a lot of music while working, everything from Queen and Pet Shop Boys to old Tamil film songs. His Danish trainer Nielsen has become quite a fan of MGR songs in the process.

Aruna’s nickname for Anand in the early years of their marriage was ‘Lord of the Rings’ because he kept losing his wedding ring. Her parents replaced it for him three times until he asked them to stop.

Anand once bought Aruna a sari because he thought the colour would “look brilliant in hi-resolution on the computer screen.”

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