India's newest grandmaster is from Madurai!!

Two months shy of 19 years, Deepan Chakkravarthy (DoB 03/06/1987) showed promise right from his younger years. He started playing at the age of six and his father who dreamt of seeing his son in the pinnacle of chess glory, passed away just three years later. This jewel from Madurai hails from a middle class family and his whole family rallied around Deepan and his mother, Murugeswari, to make his father's dream come true.

Chess comes easily in his family, and one can confirm it looking at the results of Deepan and his sister Raja Surya (former Asian Under 14 champion). Recently, Deepan's mother made the hard decision to keep his sister in academics and away from chess, purely for the economics of managing two talented children in the expensive arena of international sport.

Yes - Deepan is from Madurai - he is the grandmaster of india and he is away from world championship by few steps.