What got me into this was my unfortunate tendency to mimic an elderly man who came to milk the cows in our neighbourhood. I used to lampoon his quavering voice asking for a vessel to collect the milk in – and the secretary heard it. From that alone he decided I could act, even though I had no such inclination or ambition myself.
So in a way, you could say that it was my boyish mimicry of our poor milk-man Suppiah-amman, which roped me into a lifetime of theater.
But once you got in, you got more involved and interested?
Not really. I just went where life took me, and it took me through a lifetime of theater. I have never been ambitious. I went along with the flow of life’s twists and turns. All that happened in my life, just happened to happen. I never planned for any of it.
Weren’t there any specific efforts you ever made of an ambitious nature?
There is only one that I can recall. I didn’t do my A’Ls adequately, and after a few years at the YMHA, my mother packed me off to do my B.A in India – again, against my will. While there, the Indian theater cum movie actor Cho Ramaswamy was my batch-mate. He was one of the live-wires at Madras University in organizing and directing plays, but I was still uninterested and did not get involved there.

On getting back to Sri Lanka in 1957 I became a teacher at Senkundha Hindu College. I also rejoined the YMHA. Soon after, a famous baratha-natyam danseuse of that time staged a dance show at the YMHA and some of us were roped in to set up the stage for her. The ‘stage’ was made up of library desks tied together. Those desks were not evenly sized; some were sloped, some were lower than others, some hobbled; she was a hefty lady to boot. We, the stage-makers had our hearts palpitating throughout her performance in case she came tumbling down with those desks. Fortunately the event completed without mishap. Only after that could we breathe a sigh of relief.
Meanwhile, at this performance, I had noticed Kalai-Arasu Sornalingam, then one of the stalwarts of Tamil theater, in the audience. For the one and only time in my life, I felt the strong need to make an impression.
When we were dismantling the make-shift stage after the performance, he stood by waiting for his car. I pretended not to see him standing nearby and acted as if I was engrossed in learning some lines for a play. The lines I chose for this impromptu demo were some rather dramatic ones from Raja Raja Cholan, a popular Indian play depicting olden day royalty.
He however paid absolutely no attention to me and went off. I was left feeling foolish.
Six months later, in 1958, someone came to Thirunelvely looking for me. “Who is Shanmugalingam? Kalai-Arasu Sornalingam would like to meet you.” That was when I realized, “Ah, it paid off, after all.”

So you got a chance to become a professional theater actor with that break?
We all were and still are amateurs. None of us could be called professionals. Theater for a long time (at it still is) was a passion and a hobby, not a profession. We all had day jobs to support ourselves and carried out performances for which we only put in money; not earned from it.
But yes, getting to work with him was a big break. He wanted me to play Arjuna in a play he was directing called Theroti Mahan (the charioteer’s son) in which Karna was the hero. That play became so hugely popular that we had to reproduce it nearly 10 times over the next few years.
Sornalingam was a brilliant dramatist whose chief brilliance lay in portraying negative characters empathetically. From Shakespeare’s Shylock to the Mahabharatha’s Shakuni – his portrayal of the characters were peerless. I learned a lot from him.
You are more famous in the theater world as a playwright than as an actor; how did you break into writing scripts?
Through necessity. We tried several times to get a famous writer of that time, ‘Sitpi’ Saravanapavan to write for us – but he was always busy. After some time, he saw a children’s play I had written, being staged. He thereafter encouraged me to write on my own as he said I had what it took. You could therefore say I became a playwright by ‘accident’ too; it was due to forced necessity.
Yet you must have realized at some point that these ‘accidents’ had made you tap into a heretofore unidentified passion or talent within yourself? Your plays are some of the most acclaimed in Jaffna today.

Again, no! I started writing because I had to and kept doing it because that was what life was leading me to do. People tell me they enjoyed my plays and that is good enough – but I don’t think I am a genius who wrote classics. Yes, my plays made it into school textbooks but most of my plays are topical. They were inspired by current events of the time and so are not going to live on in history, as timeless. That’s not what I aimed for anyway.
Which of your plays are you most known for?
Children’s plays mostly. As a teacher, my main work was with children until retirement, so many of my plays were also scripted for their sake. As such I am credited with innovating a modern form of theater to appeal to children.
Many of your plays have also been staged in Colombo as well as abroad. Have you had to travel much for this?
I rarely travel; I prefer to let the different directors who want to stage my plays manage it themselves. Attentions and felicitations irritate me and I avoid them wherever possible. I detest the Tamil habit of lauding people by conferring the glittery shawl (pon-adai) with pomp and ceremony. It’s an absurd waste of money.
The reason I have been able to write these plays which resonate with the people is because I am heavily introverted – and thus a quiet observer of people and society, which I then bring out in my plays. Given a choice, I would prefer to sit at a corner in a back row observing people than in the front row, being the center of attention myself.
Among your plays staged abroad, which was the most popular?

Hmm, that might be ‘Enthayum Thayum’ – a play about parents who sent their children abroad and then were left alone in their last years, back here.
I wrote it in 1991, at the request of my son, who lives in Canada. He wanted something topical that applied to the Canadian Tamils; I don’t know if this play was what he had in mind but it was what he got. It was staged in several countries with Tamil diaspora presence, as well as in Batticaloa and Colombo.
What was the feedback of the diaspora on it?
It definitely struck a chord with them, even if not necessarily a pleasant one. My friend Tarcisius, a veteran thespian himself was the director of the play in the UK. He called to tell me that people watched the play immobile, with tears in their eyes. There was an instance of a joke in the middle of one emotional scene – and only one audience member had laughed at it, for which he immediately drew dagger looks from the others apparently. I would say it was a success.
Final question: As someone who has seen much and recorded much in the form of your plays, what advice have you for Tamil youths? Many of us are caught between a fast globalizing modern world and a traditional culture of our own. We face the uncomfortable challenge of having to adapt to the fast-changing world as well as retain our distinctive culture. Where does one draw the line?
Culture is what is practiced by the people organically, not what the traditionalists tell us we should be like, based on what they imagine our ancestors were once like.
If there is one thing I have realized as a thespian over several decades, it is that reformative writers, playwrights, poets et al spring up only when there is something terribly wrong with society. As such, some terrible societies produce brilliant literature edifying ethics and values to be upheld. In a later time, clueless descendants of those people would look back and say, “Oh our ancestors were such wonderful people with advanced morals.”
For an example within our culture, people look on the admittedly brilliant rhyming couplets of our ancient poet Thirvalluvar or poetess Auviar, and say that Tamils once had a glorious culture. Most of the advice Thiruvalluvar or Auviar gave however were basic common-sense ethics. If they felt the need to tell people not to steal and not to harm, I imagine they lived in terribly lawless times.

I don’t recommend letting go of who you are to ape someone else’s culture – but I don’t recommend hanging on to the coat-tails of a ‘glorious past ‘either.
Culture is like a clock; it keeps moving with the times – inexorably. What the rigid traditionalists are doing, is trying frantically to stop the clock-hand marking seconds from moving – because that is what they can see. In the meantime, the clock-hand marking hours, which they can’t see and are not trying to control, is moving too. Change is inevitable. Just go with the flow.
Published: 11/12/2014

The post Kulanthai Shanmugalingam; a life spent in drama first appeared on M Thulashi.

I won’t however, because it isn’t the truth.
The average Sri Lankan has a very poor level of English. In a two month IELTS course, there is no way I can bring them up to 6.5.
If they study with me for two years or more, then yes, I can.
Even that is not guaranteed, as the students have to do a lot of work on their own apart from what I teach. If you take a region like Jaffna, people never hear English used around them in daily life. And if they are not in the habit of watching movies, reading books, travelling or interacting with English speakers from outside the region – which most of them are not – even studying with me is not going to be fully effective.
You can’t learn a language solely in the classroom. That’s not how it works. I have managed to do this only in a few instances; when I taught intensive courses, where the students were with me four hours a day, three days a week over four months. Because I had a captive audience for that many hours a day, I was able to ensure they read books, and watched movies for part of the class apart from textbook activities. They picked up rapidly.
Students who came in barely speaking English and certainly not writing it, went out speaking fluently, conducting vibrant debates, storytelling. public speaking, essay writing… the works. Even I was astounded by how fast they developed.

When I tried to replicate it via zoom during covid however, I failed with quite a few. (Also was successful with a few – but it was at best 50:50). Because the classes were only 1.5 hours each over the weekend. I taught the textbook basics and urged them to watch movies and read books on their own. Even took the trouble to search out cartoons and children’s movies as well as graded readers suitable to their level and sent them the links. The students who diligently followed those links picked up rapidly. But that was often less than 50 percent of the class. Most lack the discipline to follow through and so were not as successful.

Sri Lankans, especially the kind of students I get from my area who are monolingual, also have a very poor understanding of how to pick up a new language. I keep telling them it is not a classroom activity and they have to put in the work to interact with the language in order to learn it.

1. Their access to such measures are poor in these regions. Especially speaking. I do have speaking activities in my classes but not enough; only a couple of hours over the weekends is not enough.
   For this reason, I recently arranged for volunteers to come speak to my students regularly. Again less than 50 percent of my classes utilize this free opportunity. Those who do are developing fast.
   And those who don’t are getting left far behind. I often think of the adage, “You can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink” with my students.
2. Which leads to my next point; Discipline and the willingness to work hard. Sorry to say, but many Sri Lankan students just want a certificate to prove they studied without the willingness to work for it, or indeed, even an interest in acquiring the knowledge associated with it.
   All they care about is which teacher is capable of getting them the target marks with the least effort possible on their side.
   I am getting distinctly nervous with the number of doctors, engineers and lawyers asking me if there is a way to bribe IELTS examiners or for me to leak the paper in advance.
   If this is how they qualified in their professions, we are in serious trouble.
3. Reading: this seems to be a distinctly Jaffna phenomenon – most of my students from around here are actively allergic to the concept of reading. You can’t develop a language, especially the vocabulary, grammar and spelling for writing, to the high level required in IELTS, without reading. I have had students fluently able to speak because they studied in international schools or watched movies etc – but were weak in writing, yet stubbornly resisted reading, despite all my efforts to make it interesting for them.The only advice I can give Jaffna parents is to get over your phobia of reading—many of you are beating it out of your children if they develop the habit on their own.Inculcate reading as a habit in your children if you want them to learn other languages well. Indeed, even to learn your own language well. It is near impossible to get adults prejudiced against reading, as in Jaffna, to form the habit late in life. And they lose out on a lot because of it.
4. Don’t fall for comforting lies. Sri Lankans are easy to fool. I often think I should lay out a mat with a parrot by my side and do astrological readings for a tidy sum. No matter what lies I tell and whatever predictions prove false in the future, you’ll never demand your money back. Indeed, you will keep coming back for more.I am noticing this phenomenon with IELTS teachers now.If a student gets the target band of 6.5 or higher, it’s because the teacher is a genius. If the student doesn’t however, it is all the student’s fault. They were too dumb.

None of you are dumb but you do have some dumb community wide attitudes and practices when it comes to getting an IELTS certificate. So here’s some free advice, uncomfortable though it may be: Investigate methods of language acquisition, take the time to follow it, work hard, and you will get your certificates.

You can’t bribe the examiners, and there are no shortcuts. Do the work.

The post My Experience teaching the IELTS in Jaffna first appeared on M Thulashi.

It is a peninsula left devastated by three decades of civil war. But looking at Jaffna now, one would be hard put to find evidence of it. ‘Development’ is in full swing everywhere; supermarkets, smoothly tarred and widened roads, multi-storeyed, modern buildings, and pretty houses.

A land and people who have thought of nothing but war and survival for over 30 years are moving on. Due to their circumstances, they have unique problems – which they are also learning to fend in unique ways. One of the best examples is the overabundance of war-affected widows and women-headed families. It is a peninsula that traditionally believed that a woman’s place was in the home. But now, of necessity, they have had to move out. Several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tried to help them cope in various ways; poultry, farming implements and wells, sewing machines…
The Women’s Education and Research Centre (WERC) however identified another need and came up with something different: ladies driving three wheeler taxis. This is a country that already has female pilots. We also have plenty of women driving cars. In Jaffna, it is no uncommon sight to see girls on scooters, or even on motorcycles. Yet, nowhere in the country did we previously have women taxi drivers. A few women have been known to drive their own private three wheelers, but driving that hardy little vehicle is generally considered the unique preserve of men.

Thanks to the initiative of WERC, however, Jaffna, Batticaloa and Ampara now sport some scenes that the locals are still getting used to; seeing females driving three wheeler taxis. The initiative is nearly a year old in Jaffna and from there, it was taken to Ampara and Batticaloa three months ago, according to Director of WERC, Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran.
“We wanted to give the women some non-traditional skills, which would also be less laborious than their traditional skills set of farming or sewing,” explains Dr. Thiruchandran on why they chose this particular project for their target beneficiaries. “We chose women who were supporting their families, mainly single mothers and gave them intense training on assertiveness, personality development and gender equity before equipping them with the vehicles. We also taught them basic accounting and banking skills as well as how to cope with public and sexual harassment. As it turned out, however, they have been far better received by their communities and their fellow male taxi drivers than we anticipated.”
The women concur. According to Komaleswari Selvakumar (42), a mother of four, the male three wheeler drivers of the area are extremely helpful and protective. “They on their own, gave us their mobile numbers and told us to call them if we ever run into any trouble with customers but we have not had any such trouble so far,” she smiles. She has her stand in a busy spot in the heart of Jaffna town and according to her, other drivers immediately come up and offer to take the hire if a shady looking character walks up to her. “Just yesterday though, after I had accepted a hire, a fellow driver called me and told me the customer looked a little troublesome, so he would take him instead. I told him that he should have acted promptly (as they usually do) in diverting the hire to himself as the customer was already in my taxi and it would be insulting to him to transfer him after that. I took the hire – the man was indeed shifty-eyed and nervous, which in turn made me nervous. But when I got talking to him, I was amused to find he was actually afraid of me. He was a big, burly man, which is what must have set the alarm bells ringing in my colleague’s mind, but as it turned out, he was far more conscious of the fact that he was alone in my three wheeler than I was.”
According to her, the reception from the community has been positive but she does hear some snide remarks as well from ‘traditionalists’, not all of whom are men. Her husband, a labourer, unable to support his family had taken to drinking to drown his disheartenment, and so it has fallen to Komaleswari to not only bring up her children but earn their bread as well.“I do this out of necessity, not out of any wish to do so. But I hear a wide spectrum of comments, ranging from encouraging ones for supporting my family as well as staying on with my husband, to advice to divorce him and marry another man, to sneers on how dare I wear the pants in the marriage. I just shrug it off and do what I have to do. What else can I do?”
It is a daunting challenge that these women have taken up, not only because they juggle housework and childcare with their jobs but because of the nature of that job, which their culture and backgrounds had never prepared them for.
“I only knew how to go to the hospital and the local temple from my home. As girls we were not allowed to go anywhere else, especially unescorted. We lived such sheltered lives,” says Sujanthini Indrakumar (33) a mother of three. “I still have to ask my way around. Finding the places people wanted to go to was one of the biggest challenges. Along with learning to drive. We were not given adequate training and were launched before we were comfortable with the vehicle. I used to practise test runs outside my house for days.”
She has built up her own client base, mostly female office workers who are happy at the prospect of having a lady driver. “I have regular customers, mostly children and ladies. It is so much easier to be self-employed like this as I can regulate my times. I used to work in a supermarket before this and had to work till 8.00 or 9.00 p.m., coming home too exhausted to do anything else. My husband is an ex-cadre who surrendered after the war but has gone missing since then. I looked for him in all the rehabilitation camps but eventually gave up, figuring if he was alive, he knew his way home. I have to single-handedly look after my children and can’t afford to take time away to look for him, so I had to give up.”
In addition to not knowing the topography well like the men do, the women launched into a completely new field, didn’t know the rates to charge which had apparently caused some problems. It has since been solved by another innovation, new to the area: they are among the first meter taxi drivers there.

The rate, at Rs 70 for the first kilometre and 40 for every kilometre after is a lot heftier than Colombo rates, but is apparently the stipulated rate for outstation taxis.
“We fixed them up with the metres as they had no idea of what rates to ask for,” says Rajani Chandrasekaram, a Jaffna-based women’s rights activist, who was asked by WERC to supervise the project. According to her, the project is a success in that they hadn’t encountered the level of opposition they had feared at first. “We gave them a lot of training on how to deal with harassment and are still planning on self-defence classes too, but none of that has been necessary so far. Of course only four are currently driving their vehicles in Jaffna and all four are rather strong personalities.”
In the Jaffna project, 25 women had been selected to be beneficiaries, of which only 15 had stayed the course and 10 had finally passed the license to receive the vehicles. But only four are now actively running. The others gave various excuses as to why they are not running.
“One said KKS road is being repaired and she is scared of the heavy traffic running up and down the available half of the road, when I called to ask for an explanation,” says Rajani. “Mostly they seem to be giving in to community pressures and perceptions. They are getting remarried or preparing to remarry and so are getting culturally repressed from showing the image of a ‘strong woman’ which might be detrimental to their marital aspirations.”
The ones who are running meanwhile, project the ‘strong woman’ image for all its worth. “I have developed this personality where I talk to my customers in an easy manner,” says Komaleswari. “Men, especially adolescents and youths might make the mistake of thinking we are weak or meek otherwise. Lady drivers are still a novelty and so they gravitate towards us and if they find us friendly, try to flirt. I respond with witty repartee but make it clear in as genial a manner as possible that I am a strong woman not to be messed with.”

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