Vishwanathan Anand

Name: Viswanathan Anand
Born: 11 December 1969, Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu
State: Tamil Nadu
Sport: Chess

Early life

Viswanathan Anand was born in Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu, on 11 December 1969. He learned chess at the age of six from his mother, Sushila, who taught him the game at home in Chennai. The family lived in Manila, in the Philippines, from 1978 to the early 1980s, where his father worked as a consultant for the Philippine National Railways, and it was there, following televised games and playing against strong local opposition, that his game developed quickly. Back in Chennai he studied at Don Bosco Matriculation Higher Secondary School and later took a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Loyola College, alongside his early tournament career.

Rise to grandmaster

Anand won the national sub-junior chess championship in 1983, going through the event unbeaten, and earned his first International Master norm the following year at the Asian Junior Championship in Coimbatore. In 1985, at the age of 15, he became India’s youngest International Master after winning the Asian Junior Championship in Hong Kong, and a year later, at 16, he became national chess champion. In 1987 he won the World Junior Chess Championship in Baguio, in the Philippines, the first Indian to do so. He earned the grandmaster title in 1988, at the age of 18, after winning the Shakti Finance International tournament in Coimbatore, where he defeated the Soviet grandmaster Efim Geller; he was awarded the Padma Shri that same year.

World titles

Anand won the FIDE World Championship in 2000, beating Alexei Shirov in the final, and became the undisputed World Champion in 2007 after winning the championship tournament in Mexico City. He defended the title against Vladimir Kramnik in 2008, Veselin Topalov in 2010 and Boris Gelfand in 2012, before losing it to Magnus Carlsen in 2013. He reached the world number one ranking in April 2007 and a peak rating of 2817 in March 2011, and has also won the World Rapid Chess Championship twice, in 2003 and 2017, and a World Blitz title. He earned the nickname “Lightning Kid” early in his career for the speed at which he played, and in most tournament games he finishes with more time on his clock than his opponent.

Sofia, 2010

The 2010 title defence against Topalov, held in Sofia, Bulgaria, was disrupted by the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which grounded flights across Europe from 16 April that year. With his flight from Frankfurt cancelled and the Bulgarian organisers unwilling to grant more than a short postponement, Anand made the roughly 40-hour journey to Sofia by car, arriving on 20 April, four days before play resumed. Topalov won the first game, but Anand won games two and four and went on to retain his title, winning the match 6.5-5.5.

After the world title

Anand lost the title to Magnus Carlsen in 2013, in a match held in his home city of Chennai, at the Hyatt Regency, without winning a single game across the ten played. He set up the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy in 2020 to mentor a group of young Indian players, among them Gukesh Dommaraju, who went on to become the youngest world champion in history in 2024. Anand was elected FIDE Deputy President in 2022 and became the organisation’s acting president in July 2026.

Personal life

Anand married Aruna in 1996; the couple have a son, Akhil. Aruna, a software engineer by training, has also managed much of his career and business affairs over the years, and travels with him to most of his tournaments.

Achievements and awards

World Chess Champion (2000, and undisputed champion 2007-2013); World Rapid Chess Champion (2003, 2017); World Blitz Chess Champion; Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (1991-92, its first recipient); Padma Shri (1988); Padma Vibhushan (2007), the first sportsperson to receive it.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons