Two weeks ago, I talked about a song perpetrated by one of our northern neighbours. Today, our southern neighbours get their day in the spotlights. Jain is a French singer1 who rose to prominence in 2015 with her album Zamaka, two singles from which, Come, and Makeba, reached the top 10 in hit charts all over Europe. In the video accompanying the former, the singer can be seen playing chess against a copy of herself.
The first thing we see is white taking on h7 with a rook in what seems to be a far too early part of the game. The second thing we see is black inexplicably moving her pawn from h7 to h6. And then hitting the clock with her other hand. Clearly, Mrs. Jain is quite unfamiliar with our royal game and the venerable customs surrounding it.
More evidence comes in a next shot, where we get a nice close-up of a board, but the black pieces are all upside down. This, too, is not usual at all. But rectifying this situation, we finally have a position to discuss:2
We see white play her pawn to d3 here. And that’s a worry, because if white were to move this wouldn’t be too silly a position, but with black to move it’s incomprehensible. How did white lose a tempo? The only possibility is that she didn’t: she must have lost at least two, which means black must have lost at least one. But then, in fact, he must have lost two, so we must conclude that white has wasted at the very least three tempi here.
Now, I’m not very well-versed in matters theological, but isn’t jainism supposed to be a very pacifistic world view? So why the murderous tendencies towards the poor, poor tempi?3
Realism: 1/5 At first glance, it looks deceptively reasonable, but no: it’s about as impossible as it can get without becoming illegal.
Probable winner: It’s too early to tell. Everything still has to happen.
1. [The words she sings are English, but she’s still very much singing French.] ↩
2. [Namely: is this diagram editor the best currently online?] ↩
3. [Is it because they have become Time, destroyer of worlds?] ↩