At Chennai, life comes full circle for Harika

AT the Chess Olympiad in 2022, D Harika, then in the final trimester, battled the odds to win a bronze. Three years later, Harika is back in Chennai, this time with her daughter.

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN @Chennai

AT the Chess Olympiad in 2022, D Harika, then in the final trimester, battled the odds to win a bronze. Three years later, Harika is back in Chennai, this time with her daughter. A few days before the Chennai Grand Masters began, she made it a point to take her two-year-old kid (she turns three in a few weeks) inside the playing hall at the hotel.

There, she lifted Hanvika and put her in "my chair." "I made her move the pieces," Harika told select journalists on Tuesday. "That felt good; it's been like 25 years since I started playing chess internationally. It's a nice feeling that my daughter is coming and witnessing what I'm doing in my life.