Meet Charvi Anilkumar, the chess prodigy who won the Bal Rashtriya Puraskar

She started playing chess at the age of five. Four years later, Charvi Anilkumar has become the recipient of the highest civilian honour for children in India. On Monday, she was felicitated with the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar by President of India Droupadi Murmu, and the following day, she got the chance to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Calling it a “wonderful experience”, the nine-year-old tells us, “He gave all the awardees a gift and I got a Kannada book. In our meeting, I asked him if we could introduce chess as a subject in school and he said he’ll see what he can do about it.”

Charvi feels learning chess from a young age has helped her tremendously when it comes to cognitive skills: “It has strengthened my memory, increased my concentration, bettered my calculations and helped retain my focus”. To this, her mum Akhila adds, “We have seen her progress over the years. When she was first interested, she’d spend about an hour learning and playing the game. Now, it has increased to at least five or six hours of total concentration.”

Among her many feats, the young champ has also achieved the World No 1 status in the Under-11 girls category, according to the International Chess Federation. While there is a lot that she has accomplished already, the Bengaluru resident says her journey has just about begun. “I am not focused on awards; I’m only working on my performance for the future matches,” says the rising star, who is trained by Syawams Mishra, the 62nd Grandmaster of India, and RB Ramesh, also a mentor to Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa.