How to turn the Mundane into Sacred?

I sat and edited the video of Yochanan Afek, one of the most famous composers in the world of chess, for 6 hours. It was an 86-minute interview of the legend and to do justice to the interview I wanted everything to be done well. I added the relevant photos, whenever he spoke about chess, I screen recorded the board and overlayed it carefully next to him! Oh what a joy it was to go through his studies.

When I finished, I hit the "Render Video" button. As my powerful machine whirred I sat there excitedly waiting for the final output (mp4 file) to upload on YouTube. But suddenly the blue death screen appeared! The nightmare of any person using computers. There is nothing you can do about it. It's like the Yamraj of computers! Once the blue screen has arrived you can know that your machine is in trouble. The good news is that the computer is given its next life pretty soon!

The computer restarted. As I opened Camtasia - my editing software, thinking that autosave should have worked, there were screen recordings of the chess board that had vanished. It was another work of roughly an hour. I looked at the watch it was 2 a.m. I took a deep breath and with great love and care began the same work. It could only be boring if I thought I had done it before. But as Ding Liren/Heraclitus had told me, "No man enters the same river twice. For it is not the same man and it is not the same river." I looked at the positions freshly. I found great strength in looking at those fascinating studies again. I placed them correctly on the timeline. This time when I hit the render video button it was 3 a.m. The video had done 25% of its rendering and the blue screen appeared once again.

It was time to detach myself from the process and go to sleep. I shut down the machine - some rest is needed for it as well. It's not an easy job to be the computer at my place. Most of the days you are working overtime!

I woke up in the morning and switched on my computer. This time the auto save had worked. I rendered the video again. I hoped that the rest that the machine got the entire night would be enough for it to work smoothly. Well, it was not to be. 50% into the process, the computer collapsed once again. Blue was surely not my favoured colour anymore!

At this point, it is easy to feel sad. To blame the guy who took the computer with him a few days ago and brought it back in a worse situation. Why couldn't he do his job well. To blame the fate was another option or worse still to blame your loved ones!

It's quite understable if you feel like this after such an ordeal! | Photo: dooder/freepik

It was important to recalibrate. I recalibrated myself. Brought in the love and gratitude for the work I was doing. To turn the mundane into sacred is one of the most important things I have learnt recently. To be in the optimum state of mind. Because it is only when you are in an optimum state do you see opportunities in difficulties.

I saw that the machine would render the video for some % and would then break down. Here was the opportunity. If I could break my video into 4 parts and then render them separately, wouldn't it work? I tried it and it worked like a charm. Thank you computer, you are awesome after all :)

I could see the next steps quite clearly. I used a hard disk to transfer this material on to my laptop. Fired on my Camtasia on the laptop, put all 4 videos files one after the other on the timeline and then rendered the video.

My laptop doesn't have the same power as my computer but it was stable and got the job done in an hour! And there was my video - a work of art!

We often think that it is we who carve our work. But in fact it is the other way around. I believe It is our work that carves us! :)

No matter which situation I am, no matter what work I am doing, it is important to stay calm, cool and collected - a picture of equanimity as they say. Work will come and go but the way you react to it will leave impressions in your mind forever! - Sagar Shah

Massive updates on the Freestyle Chess Tour by Magnus Carlsen and Jan Buettner

After a successful completion of the inaugural edition of Weissenhaus Freestyle G.O.A.T. Challenge, Magnus Carlsen and Jan Henric Buettner make a major announcement. The world's greatest chess player and German entrepreneur, invited world’s top chess players to become members of their newly formed, exclusive Freestyle Chess Players Club (FCPC). At the same time, Carlsen and Buettner confirmed the launch of a worldwide Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, a series of five tournaments per year on five continents. Read the press release to know details about the announcement.

IMPROVE YOUR PIECES WITH RB RAMESH!

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LATEST NEWS OF THE WEEK

Arjun Erigaisi will return at 29th TePe Sigeman & Co 2024

Arjun Erigaisi will make his third consecutive appearance at one of the most prestigious events of the world, 29th TePe Sigeman & Co Tournament 2024. As always, the organizers have once again put together a great mix of legendary players along with the present generation of world-class talents. The defending champion - Peter Svidler, Arjun Erigaisi, Nils Grandelius (SWE) and Vincent Keymer (GER) will be returning to the 29th edition. They will be joined by the reigning four-time Women's World champion - Wenjun Ju (CHN), former World Rapid champion - Nodirbek Abdusattorov (UZB), four-time Ukraine champion - Anton Korobov, and reigning World Junior champion - Marc` Andria Maurizzi (FRA). The tournament will take place at Elite Plaza Hotel, Malmö in Sweden from 27th April to 3rd May 2024. Photo: Shahid Ahmed

Velammal AICF Round Robin Women Grand Master Tournament to be held in Chennai

Once again, an important event is set to take place in Chennai, known as the capital of Indian chess. This time, the event will be held in the form of the Round Robin Women Grand Master Tournament. In this tournament, a total of 11 classical matches will be played on a round-robin basis between five foreign women title players from Mongolia, Serbia, France, Italy, and Colombia, and seven Indian women players. Velpula Sarayu of India will be the top-seeded player of the competition. This competition, with a prize money of Rs 10 lakh, will be played from March 18 to March 25. The main organizer of the competition is the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association. ChessBase India will continue to share every piece of information related to this tournament with you from the venue. Read this article.

Consistent P Saravana Krishnan dominates Prague International Chess Festival 2024 Grand Prix

IM P Saravana Krishnan participated in seven different events at Prague International Chess Festival 2024. Saravana made five podium finishes out of them. He scored a staggering 1020 points in the entire Grand Prix and finished 255 points ahead of the runner-up, FM Nikoloz Chkhaidze (GEO). Saravana's performances are: Runner-up in F Solving competition; second runner-up in G Basque chess, H Rapid, J Fischer Random and K Pair Blitz. Each day after finishing his side events, he played his Classical game in D Open category. Saravana showed his passion and true dedication towards chess in not just one format or time control but across a multitude of formats and variants. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague International Chess Festival

Mitrabha Guha perfect at 2nd Aamdar Chasak Rapid Rating Open 2024, earns a brand new Honda Shine bike

GM Mitrabha Guha scored a perfect 9/9 to win 2nd Aamdar Chasak Rapid Rating Open 2024. He finished a half point ahead of the field. GM Laxman R R scored sole 8.5/9 to secure second place. IM Kaustuv Kundu, IM Ravi Teja S and IM Ratnakaran K scored 8/9 each. They secured third, fourth and fifth place according to tie-breaks. The total prize fund of the tournament was ₹200000 + bike + 97 trophies. The champion's prize was a brand new Honda Shine motorbike. The runners-up received were ₹20000 and ₹15000 each respectively. The top three winners received a huge trophy. The one-day rapid rating tournament was organized by Kalyan Taluka Buddhibal Sanstha on 3rd March 2024 at Navrang Banquets in Kalyan, Maharashtra. Photos: IA Mohit Ladhe / Kalyan Taluka Buddhibal Sanstha