The Kolkata Centre for Creativity was filled with young faces and restless curiosity as Viswanathan Anand walked in for the Junior Kalam session at the Exide Kolkata Literary Meet.
India’s first chess world champion was in the city to speak about his new book Lightning Kid: 64 Winning Lessons from the Boy Who Became Five-Time World Chess Champion.
The session, moderated by Satyajit Banerjee, traced Anand’s journey from a six-year-old learning chess from his mother to the fast-paced club player who earned the nickname that now titles his book.
Anand was in conversation with Satyajit Banerjee for a Junior Kalam session at KCC
Ahead of the session, in conversation with The Telegraph Online My Kolkata, Anand spoke about why he chose to distil decades of elite competition into 64 concise lessons.
“Sixty-four is a convenient number because it’s a chessboard,” Anand said with a smile. “You cannot dump every lesson you have learnt. You have to find bigger patterns. In a sense, sixty-four is also a lot.”
Anand explained that the intent was never to produce a technical chess manual but a collection of personal reflections. “I wanted to make them narrower and more specific. This is what I learnt here, this is what I learnt there. The solutions I used probably won’t work now. Everything has changed in our world. But the challenges people face are often similar. This is how I solved them. If you are honest with yourself, not in denial, and accept you have to solve something, I’m sure you can do it as well.”
Mining memory, not diaries
Anand admitted revisiting some old material for the book but he mostly relied on memory. “A bit of that, yes. I took my old notes and tried to remember how I felt. But a good part is memory obviously. I am not writing that much every evening,” he said.
Deadlines, it turns out, were easier than title matches. When asked what was tougher, facing his hardest opponent or meeting the publisher’s timeline, Anand laughed. “The publisher’s deadline is challenging, but it was not so tight that it was a problem. Chess is tougher.”
Failure, breaks and the importance of sleep
One of the strongest threads in the book is learning from failure, a topic Anand returned to repeatedly. “The constant brushes with failure are quite natural,” he said. “As long as you can pick yourself up, that’s the goal really.”
Working harder, according to the chess legend, is not always the answer.
Anand spoke on the importance of being able to switch off
“Sometimes the problem is technical and you fix it by working on it. Sometimes it’s psychological or emotional. In those cases, it’s better to come back to a good state of mind,” he said, adding that the advice he gives after tough games mirrors life outside chess. “It’s tough if you have a bad day, but the most important thing is good sleep so the next day starts on a better note.”
Anand revealed a counterintuitive solution that has helped him through major career setbacks. “After my world championship losses, one of the best things for my chess was to take two weeks without chess. It sounds paradoxical but I have found it quite a good technique,” he said. “Switching off helps because quite often we are a bundle of emotions of what happened last time. Distancing yourself gives you space.”
Why ‘Winning Lessons’
Given how often elite athletes speak about learning more from defeat than victory, Anand was asked why the book is titled Winning Lessons. His answer was simple. “There are a million things that go into success and failure, but it’s more positive to have a title called Winning Lessons.”
On Gukesh, Prag and the candidates
No conversation with Anand today is complete without talk of the next generation. Asked about predictions for the upcoming candidates and the looming clash between India’s rising stars, Anand chose caution. “Gukesh is world champion so he gets the luxury of waiting to see. Prag will be an intense match. It may happen in Chennai. Home rivalry makes it different, but he needs to work on his chess and get ready for whoever comes.”
Pressed to pick a favourite, he broadened the field. “There are quite a few wild cards. The older guys like Nakamura and Caruana have a high level and a lot of experience. If they are extra motivated, they will be dangerous.”
Returning to the Board
Anand also reflected on his recent appearances at Jerusalem Masters, GCL and Tata Steel, where he returned to competitive play. “It was intense. After long breaks you start to forget the tension of playing. Each tournament served as a warm-up for the next,” he said. Age and generational labels, he said, fade across the board. “At some point there is a tough player. You look at their game, try to read them and play the best you can.”
As the session closed, young listeners left with stories of crowded chess clubs, restless ambition and a champion who still believes in curiosity and balance. Lightning Kid captures that spirit, offering not just lessons from the board but reminders that even at the highest level, progress begins with honesty, resilience and the courage to step away when needed.