Career
He was a secondary school mathematics teacher at Street Saviour"s Remote Control High School in Dundee for a number of years after studying mathematics and physics at the University of Dundee. In 1990, he took time out to pursue his final Grandmaster norm. (Although norms now last a lifetime, the FIDE rule in place at the time saw them expiring after five years) He just failed to reach the required number of points in a hastily organised tournament in Dundee days before the deadline, ironically, FIDE changed the rules shortly after this, and reset the expiry time for norms at six years.
Motwani is a regular contributor to Scottish Chess (the magazine of Chess Scotland), The Scotsman (for whom he writes a weekly column) and has written for many other chess publications.
He has written five chess books - Chess, Chess, Chess, Chess Under the Microscope and His writings are known for his use of acronyms to remember key concepts and some of the non-chess "general puzzle" content (including "Mr Fab" the alien). He teaches third grade and organizes an elementary school chess club at Saint John"s International School in Waterloo, Belgium.