New Delhi: In Tamil, the word “Anna” means brother, someone who watches your back, even if there is no blood relationship. Bollywood gives his own version in “Shaadi Se Pehle”, with Sunil Shetty, playing gangsters, comes with one liner: “Anna 24 Ghante Chaukan said.“(I’m Anna, always watching).For Vaishali Rameshbabu, one of the only four Indian women, the powerful type of vigilance will not help; All he needs is someone to pull it up when he has written himself from the game a few months ago.After the rough Grand Masters Chennai, where he scored one point and lost seven consecutive games, the 24-year-old made the decision-he would not play the female Swiss Grand, the tournament he won in the previous edition.“It may sound funny, but after Chennai, I decided not to play Swiss Grand,” he told Chessbase In his first interview after his last match in Samarkand last month. “I feel so bad. Losing seven consecutive games -it’s hard to recover.”At that point Karthikeyan Murali, or “Karthi Anna” VaishaliQuietly -So enter the story.
GM India Vaishali Rameshbabu with his mother and his brother R Praggnanandhaa, also a grandmaster, posed a picture after winning the 2025 Swiss Fide Grand (Fide/PTI)
However, it is not Vaishali or Karthikeyan who started a relationship. RB Ramesh, their children’s coaches and mentors, saw an opportunity for someone to remind him of what he was able to.Long calls followed, in Tamil, are filled with encouragement instead of analysis. Karthikeyan did not speak but offered a perspective to convince Vaishali to reconsider.“Thanks to Karthi Anna, we have a long call, and somehow he convinced me to play in Grand Swiss, I am very grateful to him,” Vaishali said.
R Vaishali won Fide Grand Swiss for the second edition. (Image: Fide)
He’s playing and how! Vaishali defended his title, guaranteeing his place in the 2026 female candidate.As his “intuition” that Vaishali will lift the trophy again, Karthikeyan, competing under the same roof, can only smile carefully while watching the words.A grandmaster himself, the 26 -year -old had a trip to simplicity and patience.“When I was nine or ten, my dad had surgery and was in bed for about 15 days.But talent alone is not enough. The early years saw financial concerns and limited opportunities.“The difficult part is not chess itself,” he said. “It has financial support and sponsors. My family and me, we had to pay for our own trips and competitions. Things were very difficult until 2017, when I got a job.
Karthikeyan Murali (special order)
Even recently, Karthikeyan has this incredible time. At Chennai Grand Masters, he was supposed to play in the challenger. Two days before the tournament, he got a call that he would play in Masters instead, due to the withdrawal of Vladimir Fedoseev.In Chennai, he was in fourth place, but the result is rare as the 1999 birth adds: “One thing I can say for sure is whatever source you get, no matter how small, you should take full advantage of them.“I remember when I was young, I got access to the Karsten Müller endgame DVD: five volumes, about ten lessons as a whole.Today, it was the story of a boy who played chess at home during his father’s recovery from surgery and a grandmaster who supported a potential female world champion.And that, in the world of chess and so on, it is “Karthi Anna”.
