There is a particular kind of boredom that only a college student with a two-hour break between classes and nowhere to go truly understands. You cannot go home. You cannot be productive because you’ve already tried that, and it lasted eleven minutes and thirty-two seconds. So you do what every student at the university eventually learns to do: find a tree, claim a patch of ground underneath it, and lie there like a piece of furniture the campus forgot to move aside.
Is this laziness or survival? Who knows.
Between the scorching heat, the back-to-back lectures, and the very specific misery of a timetable designed by someone who clearly hates students, the campus lawn becomes less of a garden and more of a refugee camp for the academically exhausted species. From 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., on any given day, you will find students scattered across every available inch of shade on that huge campus; some are studying that means pretending to study but watching reels, napping, snacking, occasionally crying over assignments, and playing UNO and its thousand variants that nearly end friendships.
The currency of a college campus isn’t money, by the way – it’s food. One plate of momos. One glass of iced coffee. One plate of biryani. That is the great Indian student barter system, and it runs the entire economy of campus social life.
The problem with UNO, after you have played it long enough, is that it stops being a game and starts being monotonous. We needed something new.
So three of us pooled our money and bought a chess set.
Not a nice chess set. Not a wooden, Staunton-style, tournament-grade chess set. A children’s chess set. The kind with lightweight plastic pieces that feel like they were manufactured out of melted water bottles. We were so committed to this, so genuinely thrilled with our purchase, that we took a whitener pen and hand-wrote the notation on the edges of the board ourselves. a1 through h8. In whitener. On a children’s chess board which had the tag “for 3 to 9 years old.” Three future Engineers of India were doing this at 2 p.m. on a Thursday. We were, by every possible metric, thriving.
Now, here is an important detail. We knew someone. A friend of a friend. A guy who is rated 2000 on chess.com and, to add to the intimidation, is also a titled player. He is lovely, I’m sure, but the moment you tell a 2000-rated titled player that you just learned to move the horse correctly (Now I know it’s called a knight), something wicked just shines in their eyes. A need to explain things.
So, like three mature future engineers of India, we made a collective, unanimous, and fully democratic decision: he would not find out about any of this. Not yet. Possibly never. We were not ready to be checkmated in four moves under a tree and then attend a lab about data structures the same day.
The Part Where Chess Becomes a Problem (The Good Kind)
We started playing. We were late to lectures – not because we didn’t want to go (We didn't. That part is universally true for every student), but because no one would resign. Pride is a powerful force. So is the fear of buying someone a plate of momos when your wallet is already on life support. Entire class sessions were missed because two people refused to accept that their position was objectively lost.
We were happy.
And then my partner came to visit.
We have been together for two and a half years, long distance, which means that most of our relationship exists in the form of voice notes, late-night calls, and approximately five hundred online chess games. He is better than me at chess. I know this. I know this like I know too much ice cream is bad for health. It's an upsetting fact.
We are both extremely competitive people. This is either the foundation of a great relationship or a ticking time bomb, and after two and a half years, the jury is still genuinely out.
The Stakes Were Personal
We set up the plastic chessboard under a tree. I had a chicken shawarma in my hand because I am a person who makes good decisions. The stakes were simple and devastating: the loser of the game had to post an embarrassing photo of themselves on the winner’s Instagram with the caption, “The love of my life.”
He won the first game. Of course he did. I proposed a best-of-three because I am an optimist who had not yet fully processed the situation or because I am a sore loser. It is a coin toss, really.
By some miracle – some beautiful, inexplicable, cosmically undeserved miracle – I won the second game. I don’t know how. I don’t want to examine it too closely. Some gifts, you just accept.
So here we are. Third game. Decisive game. Everything on the line.
I tried everything. I made conversation. I pointed at birds. I commented on the weather in a detailed way, like a crazy person. The man was unmoved, eyes locked on the board with the kind of focus that makes you realise he is, in fact, the sort of person who takes chess seriously. Which, in this context, I hated about him.
The position was critical. His bishop had my queen pinned to my king. I was running out of moves. I was running out of shawarma, which I had been munching on, and in my guilt, I had been feeding tiny pieces of it to a puppy who, at some point during the first game, decided to adopt me as his person. My insides were urging the puppy to scatter the pieces on the board.
He was a small dog with the most aggressively wagging tail I have ever seen on a creature that tiny. Maybe he was rooting for my opponent. Traitor.
Divine Intervention, Four Legs, and a Very Good Boy
The clock was ticking. I had maybe thirty seconds left. My queen was trapped, and my king was cornered. It was checkmate in the next move.
And then –
The puppy looked at the board. He looked at the bishop. Maybe he looked at me, too.
And then, as if he had studied the rules of chess and identified the exact piece causing me problems, he leapt onto the board, grabbed the bishop in his mouth, and ran.
Not a gentle grab or a curious sniff. A committed, full-speed, tail-wagging heist.
My boyfriend looked at the board. He looked at the puppy disappearing across the lawn. He looked at me.
He chased that dog all the way across the park. I watched from under the tree, absolutely beside myself, completely unable to breathe, tears running down my face from laughing. The puppy, for his part, seemed to be having the time of his life. He had somewhere to be. He had a bishop. He had a purpose.
The game never finished. Technically, no one won. Technically, the Instagram post never happened. Technically, the result of the match is still disputed in the annals of our relationship.
The puppy was eventually caught. He was given a treat, because obviously. He had earned it. He was named Bishop on the spot, which is the least I could do for a dog who saved me from embarrassing myself.
What Chess Actually Gave Us
Here is what I did not expect chess to be: a way to find people.
I did not expect it to become the thing we stayed late for, the reason we were perpetually ten minutes behind schedule, a game that made a two-hour gap between lectures feel like not enough time. I did not expect a cheap plastic set with chipped pieces and a white-and-black cardboard chess board to become one of the best purchases we ever made as a group.
And I did not expect a third game on a campus lawn, with a chicken shawarma and a long-distance partner and a puppy with a very specific sense of justice with impeccable timing, to become one of those memories that you return to when you need to remember what a good day feels like.
Chess, as it turns out, is not really about chess. It is about who you are when the clock is running down, and you are out of good moves. It is about what makes you laugh when you are supposed to be focused. It is about the completely unexpected places where you find your people, and the completely unexpected ways they show up for you.
Sometimes it is a friend who refuses to resign because one plate of momos is non-negotiable.
Sometimes it is a boyfriend who chases a dog across a park because a plastic bishop means something.
And sometimes it is a small campus dog, wagging his tail, who understands more about love and loyalty than any opening theory ever could.
Bishop, wherever you are: you are a good boy. You are the best boy. And I owe you a shawarma.
