Bengaluru: It's sunny in Mallorca in 2004, and D Harika is about as confused as a 13-year-old would be when asked to partake in a team event when all she had known until that point was playing chess by herself, against the world.
The board might still house 64 squares, but the strategy changes, and that's quite the shift in a game which is as nuanced as human emotion.
Harika was told to hold her pieces and gather as many draws as possible while the rest of the Indian contingent, as part of the Olympiad, would try and rack up wins.
Edition after edition, they played the same strategy. Edition after edition, India lost.
Harika saw on, internalising losses, getting frustrated. In between, she became a Grand Master, she became a mother.
Finally, two decades on, she was able to look at herself in the mirror and allow herself to feel like a champion. She didn't have any convincing to do this time, not with a gold medal hanging around her neck.
"My belief that I would be able to win had come down a bit," she told DH on Tuesday. "I actually still can't believe that I am a champion, that we were champions."
Eyes still darting with a smile pressed up against the screen she says: "I played so hard for so long. I have given it my all for such a long time and for it to come good now.... I don't quite have the words to describe this feeling. All I know is that this is a magical moment for all of us. At the end of 2022, I felt the opposite."
The Indian team of Koneru Humpy, Harika, R Vaishali, Tania Sachdev and Bhakti Kulkarni had come away with their maiden bronze, but Harika had put in too much to settle. She was in the ninth month of her pregnancy while on these boards.
"It was quite heartbreaking but I believed this would happen. I knew we would get here," she says.
She maintains the same narrative, even the same tone, when asked if she foresaw India becoming a powerhouse in the sport and why. "Yes, I knew we had it in us to be this good, and I knew we would get here in time," she says. "There was a time when we would not get any recognition. We would win and that was it, it was forgotten, but these days, there is so much love for us. I am glad I am able to see this."
While she does a good job of breaking down sentiment, Harika hasn't yet fully answered the question, and when pointed out, she smiles and gets into it as expertly as you would expect from her.
"Ah (laughs), you got me there. I think we became more and more aware of the sport and all the things we need to do to get better at it. One of the things we knew was happening was that we were getting tired on the boards as the tournament progressed so we began taking physical fitness more seriously," she says.
"Moreover, we started spending more time working on the boards because working on the computers is much harder. That said, working different computer engines also helped us adopt new strategies.... I think when you do all these things with discipline, you end up creating an atmosphere for success."
Harika also noted that with the youngsters in the team willingly taking on roles for the sake of the team and playing with tips from the seniors in mind was an essential trait in this triumph.
"They are ready. This generation is all about awareness and being in the moment on the board. They also have a great willingness to learn and adopt new strategies. This is a great moment for chess at large, but I think these girls are going to go a long way," she says.