CHENNAI: Even at the age of 84, T A Angappan twists and spins the wooden staff with the flair and agility of a five-year-old. Anagappan was trained in silambattam, the local martial art form, when he was seven by his father at Tiruchengode in Namakkal district. He not only learnt the martial art, but also took an oath to promote the ancient art form. Since then, he has trained youngsters to take it up professionally — he has thousands of students across the State.
He visits Coimbatore once in two months to train his students and also holds a free summer vacation camp, where hundreds of students take part for 15 days. Angappan says he took lessons from his father every day after the latter got back from work. “From 9pm till midnight, my dad and I would practice silambattam. But there was no compromise on education — I finished SSLC and got a job in a co-operative society,” Angappan recalls. It was only after a friend convinced him that he started teaching silambattam in schools.
“But none of the educational institutions, not even government schools, wanted to teach silambattam. I had to convince a chief education officer at Tiruchengode to let me demonstrate the martial art,” he remembers. After training a batch of children for an hour, the official agreed to allow Silambattam to be taught in government schools.
Angappan says the main reason for the martial art not being taken up as a professional sport is because of the lack of qualified teachers. “Though silambattam associations have been set up in Malaysia, it is still only a State-level sport there,” rues
Angappan, who was also a part of the Indian delegation to Russia in September 1987, where 11 of his students demonstrated their skills.
Angappan says the art needs to grow more among people in its true form. “I hope it doesn’t become commercialised and lose its essence. Many think of it as just a tool for fighting, but Silambattam is an art and helps you grow as a person, just like other martial art forms like karate, or kung-fu,” he adds.