Chess is not anymore a game between brooding old men hunched over drab checkered boards and slogging away for hours. That stereotypical image of chess and chess players is passé—the royal-game has shed it's serious intellectual outlook and is now being truly embraced by the masses at large as a legitimate sport capable of giving even soccer or tennis a run for money. Chess, for the first time, is gaining traction among them who perhaps do not fit into the traditional chess player mould. Thanks to some unlikely men and women joining forces, there are novices taking up and becoming passionate about the game literally every other day. How has all this happened is the question in everyone's mind. Vaibhav Bajaj, a new chess initiate himself, takes you through his journey over the past few months and gives you an idea of how the spectrum of the game has been changing lately at the very grassroot level.