Ask any kid in India about chess and the first name that he or she would utter is Viswanathan Anand.

Viswanathan Anand, also known as 'Vishy' and 'Tiger of Madras' was born in 1969 in Tamil Nadu to father Viswanathan Iyer, retired head of Southern Railways, and mother Susheela, a chess player.

It was from his mother that Viswanathan Anand learnt the basics of the game. A family friend, Deepa Ramakrishnan was also a big influence on Viswanathan growing up.

Anand did his schooling from Chennai's Don Bosco Matriculation Higher Secondary School and then did his Bachelors of Commerce from Loyola College, Chennai.

Although people around him knew that the boy would turn out to be a genius, the first solid evidence of it came at the age of 14 when Anand made his first big breakthrough at the national level, emerging victorious in the national sub-junior Chess Championship in 1983.

In 1984, he became the youngest Indian to win the title of international master in 1986. Viswanathan Anand became the national chess champion in 1985 and won it a couple more times before turning India's first grand master.

Anand won the World junior Chess Championship in 1987, becoming the first Indian to do so. The next year, he became India's first grand master by winning the Shakti finance International Chess Championship.

At the turn of the millennium, Anand won the FIDE World Chess Championship as he beat Alexei Shirov in the final to become the first Indian chess world champion.

It was between 2007 and 2013 that Viswanathan Anand was at his peak. During this period, he won the World Chess Championship five times. He also climbed to the top of the FIDE ratings in April 2007, making ripples around the globe.

Anand has won the Chess Oscar on six occasions. The Chess Oscar is an award given to the best chess player of the year across the world. Anand has lifted the award in 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008.

Anand was just 18 when he was awarded the Padma Shri. In 1991-92, Viswanathan Anand became the first recipient of India's highest sporting honour, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award. He became the first Indian sportsperson to receive the Padma Vibhushan in 2007.

Anand excels at a lot of things apart from chess. He takes a keen interest in astronomy and statistics and can speak French, German and Spanish apart from Tamil and English.