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It's Time To Checkmate My Mate! Melvin Durai Melvin Durai is an Indiana-based writer and humorist. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, he grew up in Zambia and moved to the U.S. in the early 1980s. In 1995, while working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Chambersburg, Pa., he began writing a regular humor column. His weekly column now appears in several newspapers and on a number of Web sites. He also writes a twice-monthly column on Indian and Indian-American issues. He is a diehard fan of the National Football League and also likes to run, lift weights and play soccer, tennis and pool. An award-winning feature writer and aspiring novelist, he plans to publish a collection of his best columns. You can write to him at comments@melvindurai.com To read his older columns, go to http://www.melvindurai.com

It's been more than 20 years since I actively played chess, but I'm getting an itch for the sport. Wait a minute. Did I just use the words "actively" and "sport" in reference to chess? I must be losing my mind -- and if that's the case, I'd better stay away from chess.

Perhaps I'm being brainwashed by the avid chess player in my family, namely my wife. She loves chess, partly because it's one of the few sports she can play with her butt on a chair. But don't tell her I said that. I don't want to find one of those sharper chess pieces -- a bishop or a pawn -- stuck between my teeth. As it is, I pay a fortune to the dentist. I'm not sure how much he charges for "chess piece extraction."

Chess goes well with one of my wife's other loves: coffee. She's often sipping while playing. I think the steam from the coffee keeps her brain from locking up. I like to sip coffee while watching her play. It keeps me from falling asleep.

So why am I feeling a desire to play chess? The reason is simple: I want to beat my wife. But not just beat her -- trounce her, annihilate her, clobber her. I want to say "checkmate" before she has a chance to say, "Good coffee." I want to prove that I'm not as dumb as I look.

It's going to be a challenge. I can barely remember what I'm supposed to do with each chess piece. Let me see ... The pawn moves forward one square at a time or two squares in the opening move, the rook moves in a straight line over any number of squares, the bishop moves toward the altar boys.

Just thinking about chess makes my brain hurt. I wouldn't be surprised if the manufacturers of aspirin are also involved in promoting chess.

The only advantage I may have over my wife is the fact that I'm a man. I'm not suggesting that men are smarter than women. I don't believe that. And even if I did, I wouldn't say so publicly. I value my safety.

It's just that chess has long been dominated by men. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because men and women think differently. A top male player thinks, "I wonder where my opponent is going to move to next." A top female player thinks, "I wonder where my opponent bought her dress."

One Indian girl, though, seems intent on ending the reign of men such as her countryman Vishwanathan Anand, the FIDE world champion. Fourteen-year-old Koneru Humpy recently became the first Indian woman to earn a second men's grandmaster norm. Whatever that means.

Though women usually compete among themselves -- they challenge the top male players only on rare occasions -- Humpy is rather confident about her goal: "To be the men's world champion!" If she achieves her goal and unseats Anand, maybe he will compete for a different title: women's world champion.

With Humpy as men's champ and Anand as women's champ, India will truly reign supreme in the chess world.

As for me, I hope to become a chess champion, too -- champion of my wife. I won't win any money, but the satisfaction would be immeasurable. Now if only I can keep my brain from hurting ...

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