Anand the astro-nut

The chess legend opens up about a lesser-known aspect of his life

- Bhanu Prakash Chandra

A PRODIGY FINDS SAGAN 

When I was very young, there was a copy of [astronomer] Carl Sagan’s Cosmos lying in my house. As I was interested in the subject, I picked it up. There were many things inside, especially the photos. You cannot look at a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies and not think there is something amazing in the sky. The other thing that fascinated me were the distances. Many years later, when I was in Spain, a book came to my home by post. I am not even sure I ordered it; it might have been misdelivered and there was no return address. It was a gift and I read it for a while. Then I looked up the browser, which was still in its early days, and found a lot of stuff about astronomy. That rekindled my interest.

The village in Spain had 6,000 people and a clear sky. I bought an old set of binoculars and found a lot of interesting objects. My wife saw this and got me a nice pair of binoculars as a birthday gift. With that, I started watching all the planets. I saw the moons of Jupiter.

BOOKING TELESCOPES, SHOOTING STARS