00:00India's R. Vishali had just secured her sport in the FIDE candidate's tournament with back-to-back
00:10grand Swiss wins. After her win, Vishali called her mother Naga Lakshmi onto the stage. The trophy
00:15didn't pass directly from the presenter to the champion, it passed through her mother's hand
00:19first. And reportedly those hands have been quietly shaping the story for nearly 15 years.
00:25Naga Lakshmi is the mother of two India's brightest chess stars, Vishali and R. Pragnananda,
00:29making her something of a legend in her own right. She has earned the affectionate nickname
00:33The Amazing Chess Mom for her role as caregiver, planner and emotional anchor. She is a constant
00:39presence at tournaments, not just cheering but meticulously arranging meals, even carrying
00:43a cooker and utensils in her luggage so she can make rasam and rice for her children in
00:47hotel rooms across the world. A homemaker, Naga Lakshmi doesn't understand chess theory, nor
00:52does she need to. Pragnananda once said that she can tell how a game is going just by looking
00:56at their faces. Even when her children are giving media interviews, she reportedly just stands
01:00within the earshot, present but not intrusive, ensuring they have everything they need.
01:05Naga Lakshmi reportedly once dreamed of living abroad, a dream that never quite materialized
01:10for her. Today, she beams the pride when she sees the well-traveled passports of her children
01:14covered in stamps from Europe, Asia and beyond. Reportedly, the grandmaster siblings are so used
01:19to having Naga Lakshmi around that when they play in different countries, they find it tricky
01:22to manage alone. That is how central she has become to their competitive lives.
01:27And that's why this clip resonated so deeply. When Vaishali called her mother to the state,
01:31it wasn't just a thank you, it was a public acknowledgement of fears of invisible labour.
01:36The early mornings, the late nights, the meals cooked in hotel rooms, the quiet encouragement
01:40after painful losses. In that moment, when the trophy passed through her hands, it felt
01:44like the culmination of thousands of small unseen moves, not on a chessboard but in life.
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