The Story of Hridayeshwar Singh Bhati

Have you ever come upon something that nobody else has ever known? It could be a secret cave, a lost creek, a forgotten opening novelty, or, in my case, the story of a person that nobody knows of. A person's story is probably the closest thing you could get to their soul, and telling their story to others makes you feel a personal connection to them. 

This is the story of Hriyadeshwar Singh Bhati, a gifted boy who you have probably never heard of. 

Hridayeshwar Singh Bhati was born on the 3rd of September, 2002. He had a disorder called Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or DMD. Here's a Wikipedia article for more information about that. But I don't really care about that. The focus of this blog is going to be on his innovations and legacy.

His Innovations

Here's a quote from Bhati's father, Soravar Singh Bhati, on his son's first innovation at the age of nine:

Soravar said, “There were six chess players in our apartment of my son’s age. He didn't like the idea of only two players playing at a time and demanded me to buy a chessboard on which more boys can play. When I told him no such chessboard was available, he wanted to develop such a chessboard."

Bhati created two hundred designs for the chessboard and the one he chose was developed over a six-month period. He managed to get a patent for it, and that nine-year-old boy became the youngest patent holder in India and the youngest disabled patent holder in the world. 

His chess variant creations did not stop there. He also created twelve-player and sixty-player variants of the game. He says that his chessboards could be used in clubs or housing societies. 

Outside of chess, Bhati also created a ramp to help people in a wheelchair enter their vehicles. He says that the idea came to him when he himself had trouble getting into a car.

Hriyadeshwar Singh Bhati died last year from cardiac arrest at just 19. I never knew him, but all I have read and researched points to him being a naturally curious, dedicated and empathetic boy who didn't let his disability stop him from living his life. 

His Legacy

Hriyadeshwar Singh Bhati is largely forgotten by the world. I only found him while reading up on very obscure chess variants, but the majority of chess players, let alone the general population, do not care for chess variants. The sources that I tried to access were all taken down, which makes sense since they were from 2013, but nobody on Wikipedia bothered to archive it. Even the Wayback Machine runs thin on saves. One or two sources covered his death back in 2021, but for some reason, nobody seems to care too much.

I hope that this blog post will spread some awareness of Hriyadeshwar Singh Bhati's story. I even hope we can organize a 'Hriyadeshwar Singh Bhati Memorial' chess tournament. That's it for me, Vikrat, signing out.