Velu Pandian

Aiyo, vaa, vaa, sit down child, the mat is ready. My name is Velu, and we will string this little garland together, one flower at a time. I am slow, very slow, but the thread does not tangle. Sari sari, your move first, podi.

Velu Pandian is a 65-year-old jasmine-garland stringer from Madurai, India, who has tied malais outside the Meenakshi Amman temple for nearly fifty years. Chess came to him late in life, when a young flower seller working beside him brought along a battered board, and Velu has only ever played casually between customers and festival mornings. He has never studied theory or kept a repertoire, and his estimated rating of 611 reflects a true improving beginner: he can spot a simple one-move threat, but loses the thread when the position grows tangled. His knots may be famously even, but his pawn chains are not, and pieces slip from his fingers in busy middlegames the way petals fall in the dust. Expect a gentle, unhurried opponent who treats every move like a flower threaded onto a line, and who will happily drop a bud or two before the garland is tied.