Just 15 minutes before Sangeetha Nagarajan, a student of Lady Doak College, was scheduled to give a Silambam performance before the Madurai District Collector K.Veera Raghava Rao and other dignitaries, her stick broke. “For a change, I did not panic. My coach asked me to remain calm and go on the stage with a positive mind using another team member’s stick.”
She began her drill twirling the kambu as beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. But soon the 19-year-old national champion who led her team to a glorious victory (26 gold medals and six silver medals) at the recently concluded national silambattam competition in Jalandhar, found her feet and moved on with dynamic elegance to complete the show.
This is what Silambam -- the South Indian martial art of stick fighting – has done to her. “From a timid and shy person, I have emerged into a bold, confident and not-to lose-my-calm-or-nerve kind of a person,” says Sangeetha, who is a three-times State champion and winner of several private tournaments.
After nine years of training and completing the three stages of basic and intermediary level, Sangeetha says, Silambam today is a part of her. So much so that she is now off to the US to promote the ancient martial art of Tamil Nadu. She has won a five-month scholarship at Mary Baldwin University, Virginia, and leaves post-Christmas to exhibit not only her skills and talent in the traditional folk art form (now recognised by the Tamil Nadu Government as a sport) but also promote and create awareness among the Indian and American population.
It is a moment of great pride for her parents, who never stopped Sangeetha from chasing her dreams, and her coach Dr. Shahul Hameed, who believed in her. Her coach took it up as a challenge when another trainer rejected her for being an emotionally soft person. “It is a warrior’s game I was told,” she says and recalls how Dr.Hameed gave her the courage and confidence to take a plunge.
If you want to learn self-defence techniques, why not internationally recognised taekwondo or boxing, many people asked her when she revealed her desire to learn Silambam, after she watched a demo by Dr.Hameed when she was in class VI.
“I was extremely impressed with the moves and my parents were totally behind me,” she says, about her joining the Shimshan Institute of Martial Arts at the age of 10.
Rigorous hours of training along with her regular classes of Bharatanatyam and participation in every creative competition from drawing to clay modelling, debates and elocutions, may have got her physically exhausted but it never shifted her focus from studies. Sangeetha scored well in her class X and XII boards as well and she says she owes her level of concentration and energy to learning of Silambam.
Her proficiency in handling the different weapons of Silambam from the bamboo staff to the flexible sword and weighted chains or native push daggers along with her body language and the attitude that she has perfected in her movements, her nimble footwork and deft wrist work make her one of the best Silambam artistes in the city today.
The Jalandhar tournament was her first national event and she says how because of her Silambam training she was able to use her smarts against some big bullies at the railway station of a town she was visiting for the first time.
Another 35 students in her team trained by Dr.Hameed also showed their prowess in various individual and group events at the competition and practically everybody returned with a medal. “Despite their achievements over the years, there is little recognition for the sport,” rues Dr.Hameed.
The students of Shimshan Institute drawn from six schools and four colleges in the city had gathered for a felicitation function jointly organised by the Heritage Foundation and Intach Madurai Chapter. It was here that an appeal was made to the District Collector, who witnessed the silambam performance by the medal winners, to get the Centre’s support in listing Silambam as a national sport.
“If we do not promote our distinct heritage games, then who will?” asks Sangeetha, taking on her overseas trip with a determination. “It is my and my master’s dream to promote Silambam all over the world,” she says, “and I will put in every effort required.”
At her level, the youngster has been silently doing a great service. Ever since she started bagging prize money from her competitive events, she has used it on the underprivileged and sponsored benches in the maternity ward of Government Hospital, donates food in old age home in Tiruparankundram and supports 77 girl children at Balar Illam. She teaches them Silambam to help them to conquer fear and regularly conducts competitions and events for them to keep them engaged.
(This column features human inspiring stories from Madurai and surroundings. E-mail soma.basu@thehindu.co.in to tell her about people you know who are silently working to make a difference in your respective areas)
QUOTES:
“I regularly conduct Silambam competition for orphaned girl children to keep them going and fit” – Sangeetha Nagarajan.
“Sangeeta proves Silambam is not just about physical strength. It makes a complete human being” -- Dr.Shahul Hameed