by Vanessa Rebello
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“But your Majesty,” he said. “I won’t work. The enemy will definitely see it coming.”
“Psshh!” said the King dismissively. “They will never. How can they? It’s brilliant!”
“It is brilliant,” he said, catering to the only entity fatter than the King – his ego. “But if, by chance, they do see it coming, we will lose hundreds of men.”
“Psssh,” he said again. “See, I’ll show you.”
He picked up a few pebbles that decorated the flower pot beside him and placed it on the table.
“This is me,” he said, holding up the shiniest one and putting it on the table. Then he introduced the ministers, chariots, elephants, horses and foot-soldiers one by one and arranged them beside one another, each on a different check on the table cloth’s pattern.
“First we’ll send in the foot soldiers,” he said, moving a piece ahead.
“They will too,” replied the minister as he gathered up pebbles of his own and mirrored the King’s setting. He moved a piece ahead.
“Okay,” said the King. “The horse can then go in.”
“They have more horses than us,” replied the minister, moving two pieces ahead.
“You can’t do that,” said the King, slightly disappointed that he hadn’t seen it coming. “One piece at a time.”
The minister remembered rule #347 of the ‘Guide to conversing with the King’ and managed to keep himself from rolling his eyes.
“Okay,” he said, putting one piece back.
“And the elephant, it’s big,” said the King. “So it can go in here,” he said moving it two steps ahead and one to the right.
So far the minister thought each piece could move only one step ahead, but clearly, the King had his own rules.
“Alright then,” he said, scrounging up the courage to make his next move. “But then the Chariot is much faster, and the enemy will send them here.” He moved the piece two steps ahead diagonally.
The King couldn’t argue with that move, the chariots were indeed faster.
“Ah, but then the ministers would come in and BAM! There goes their Chariot!” He knocked the minster’s chariot off the board and replaced it with a piece of his own.
The minister was taken aback by the move. We can throw each other’s pieces off the board? He couldn’t let the King think he was stupid, he needed win this ridiculous game.
“Well,” he said, looking at the gap straight between their two kings. “If you do that, it leaves your King out in the open and as we know, Kings can do anything,” he said as he moved his King piece in a straight line to replace the King’s King.
“You can’t do that!” shouted the King, right before this piece could be replaced. “The King can only move three steps at a time.”
Figures.
“Well, that’s what they will do,” said the Minister as he placed his piece three steps ahead. “And in the next move of theirs...”
“Wait,” said the King as he took a moment to think about it.
A moment turned into fifteen as the King stared at the board contemplating his next move.
It was when the Minister looked about ready to strangle the King and the King’s King, that little Raju, who had been watching the game as he polished the statue of the Queen, piped in.
“Well,” he said, “then Maharaj will simply move this here to protect himself.” He pointed at a piece and then at the place it would be moved to. “And now your King will have no place to go.”
The King, who would have normally been furious at the intrusion, was thoroughly pleased.
“Yes of course!” he said. “I would! Then I win!”
The minister gave Raju a dirty look, who then scampered back to his polishing. The boy was right, there was no place for his King to move. He sat back in his chair and sighed.
“Well, I guess it works here, but the battle field isn’t exactly made up of checks, right?” he said.
The King, delighted at his victory, looked at the pieces and politely disagreed.
“But it worked here,” he said, “so give it a shot.”
“But Your Majesty...”
“I know,” interrupted the King, standing up to leave the room. “As you said, it is brilliant.”
The minister also stood up and bowed as the King walked away.
Raju stood in the corner and grinned as he went at the statue.
The minister looked angrily at the boy. He wrapped up all the pieces in the table cloth and threw it at him. The boy ducked and the pieces scattered on the floor.
“When all our men ask why they’re going to die in this battle, I’ll tell them to come and ask you,” he shouted and stormed out of the room.
Raju, barely old enough to understand polishing, leave alone warfare, quickly picked up the pieces and wrapped them in the cloth.
As the sun bid adieu to the world later that evening, Ramesh walked into the servant quarters to see his brother engrossed in a line up of stones.
“What are you doing?” he asked Raju, as he picked up things and random and put them in place.
“It’s a game,” he said. “Want to play?”
“No,” he said.
The boy continued playing with the pieces. Vaguely intrigued by this interest, he asked, “What’s it called?”
Raju looked at the board. He had heard the King use the words; Infantry, Cavalry, Elephantry and Chariotry.
‘One, two, three, four,’ he thought. “Chaturanga,” he said.
Excited by the question, he explained the rules to his brother, as best as he could. Sometimes he remembered what the King said, sometimes he made it up as he went along.
Ramesh looked at his brother and sighed. He pulled the cloth and the stones clattered on the floor.
“Put the cloth back on the King’s table,” he instructed. “No one’s ever going to play your stupid game.”
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