The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
Have you heard of Omar Khayyam? He lived about 900 years ago and he wrote the above verse.
Those were the days when Persia was at the centre of Middle Eastern civilisation, attracting scholars, poets and mathematicians like Omar Khayyam.
He wrote the above verse (this is a translation from Farsi into English by Edward J Fitzgerald around 1859) which formed part of his Rubaiyat, a collection of quatrains that is today considered as one of the most popular classics of world literature.
These four short lines, written so long ago, sums up a lot about everyday life: whatever you do with your life, you will have to take responsibility for it and live with its consequences.
I was reminded of this quatrain when I was in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week – but I’ll come back to it later.
I have been away from my desk and my computer, doing the one thing that I have really been very involved with for the past 37 years and that is, to play chess.
I always find the Merdeka team chess championship a very good occasion to renew my friendship with people whom I’ve long known chess-wise, and this particular trip to Kuala Lumpur was no different.
But there was something unique this time. Three days ago, the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Mohd Najib came for the opening of the Malaysian Chess Festival.
Datuk Seri Mohd Najib: “Are you sure this pawn is not nailed to the floor??”
Datuk Tan Chin Nam: “It wasn’t when I moved it a few inches ago.”
In 1974, I had a first-hand view of his late father, Tun Abdul Razak, Prime Minister from 1970 to 1976, closing the first Asian team chess championship in Penang. Now, 32 years later, I had another first-hand view, this time of Najib opening another significant chess event in the country.
A lot of effort went into planning this one-hour opening ceremony. The evening before, the organisers together with the public relations staff of the Cititel Hotel were going through the paces of the rehearsal and trust me, they were very meticulous.
They had to be because it is not often – rare, indeed – that a VVIP like Najib would be able to come a-calling to chess events.
The part of his speech that struck a chord in me was when he commented: “In tournament chess, you are forced to make decisions under time limits and are then forced to live with those decisions. I can think of no better mental and moral exercise for young people or, in truth, for many of us adults. You think something, you make a move and soon, you experience the consequences.”
When he said these words, immediately I couldn’t help thinking about how similar his thoughts were with Omar Khayyam’s verse.
This is, in fact, the essence of chess and life. Whatever we do, we have to face the consequences of our actions. After all, chess and life are about planning, decision-making and taking responsibility for the consequences.
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