Inspiring journey of local gangster turned Chess Champion
Inspiring journey of local gangster turned Chess Champion
Genkeswaran Muniyan shares his journey from a young convict to a chess medallist who now runs his own chess school.
PETALING JAYA:
There aren’t many people who can claim to live an easy life, devoid of mishaps and tragedies. Fate often has a way of throwing a spanner in the works, derailing pre-set plans and leaving chaos in its wake.
This was the case for Genkeswaran Muniyan, a 45-year-old Malaysian whose life has gone down a strange but inspiring path.
For one, this doting father of two is a former gangster who served time in prison. But seeing this as a wake-up call, he resolved to get his life back on track, and picked up the pieces – the chess pieces, to be precise – winning a bronze medal for Malaysia in the 2013 Southeast Asian Games for chess.
In fact, he runs his own chess school, Chess Master Journey, where he trains amateur players to become grandmasters.
It is quite the story really and it is one he is eager to share with the young in hopes that they too will one day find their true path in life.
Genkeswaran’s story has now become the subject of a documentary called “Wanted: Shades of Life Ep 3” by director Sanadtkumar Ganesan.
The award-winning film, which focuses on Genkeswaran’s life, premiered March 26 at the Petaling Jaya Performing Arts Centre, to an audience of about 200.
It was at the premiere that FMT spoke with the reformed gangster to learn more about his unorthodox journey through life.
As it happens, Genkeswaran’s story is one which starts on a rural estate in Pulau Carey.
“We used to live on RM150 per month,” he said about his family life back then. “And that’s all we had to survive on for the whole month.”
As the eldest of five siblings, he said family life was turbulent as his father was an alcoholic. His mother worked on a plantation, harvesting cocoa and oil palm to support her family.
In school, he mixed with the wrong crowd – a group of young gangsters. Needless to say, this often led to fist fights of the most brutal kind. By 17 years old, he was done with school and dropped out.
He soon found himself embroiled in turf wars, and hanging out with local thugs whom he thought were his brethren. He also earned a rather fearsome reputation for his links to the criminal underworld. Ironically, this is precisely what did him in.
After getting into a fight with a factory supervisor at his workplace, he was arrested and formally charged with a crime. Facing jail time, he reached out to his “brethren”, expecting them to rush to his aid just as he had done for them many times before.
“They didn’t turn up,” he said, quietly. “Who turned up? My parents and a few very good friends of mine.”
Thanks to his parents’ intervention, he was spared a longer jail sentence and was released after one week in prison.
Determined to turn over a new leaf, he turned to his former hobby – playing chess, that he had learnt while in primary school.
When his personal coach and mentor, Elango Thiyagu, suggested that he teach young kids how to play chess, he agreed albeit cautiously, despite having represented his school in a handful of district-level competitions before.
“I was still a beginner then. When I was young, we didn’t have chess books or anything like that. We had to figure out how to play and that was all.”
Hence, even as he taught kids to play chess, Genkeswaran himself was learning the ins-and-outs of this game of strategy. “Whatever I learnt, I gave back to my students.”
Initially, he lost money when teaching chess as he had to travel far to teach a small number of kids, but eventually, he found his footing.
There’s not much of a secret to being good at chess, he said, other than practising diligently. He suggests four hours of practice per day, eight on holidays.
“Chess is the essence of life,” he added. “You learn many things about yourself when you play chess.”
In 2013, Genkeswaran was selected to represent Malaysia in the 2013 SEA Games. He was somewhat overwhelmed by the realisation that “this was big! This wasn’t a small event, no school event!”
He was thus overjoyed to win the bronze medal for Malaysia. “I was just happy to give to the country proudly.”
Now that his story is being told to the masses, how does he feel? He remains hopeful that school dropouts will be inspired to reach for a better life, just as he did.
“I hope to impact the young generation. They can do many things, better than me actually! They can be anything. That’s why I share my experience with them.”
By : Logendra2711
