Grandson keeps alive Silambam master's tradition, trains villagers in Tamil Nadu's Sivakasi

Inspired by his grandfather, a 21-year-old has been imparting training for free in Silambam, an ancient Indian martial art form to residents of Sivakasi, a small village in Tamil Nadu's Virudhunagar district.

Prabhakaran Krishnamurthy's grandfather, the late Asan Krishnamurthy had been teaching Silambam for free to villagers who wanted to learn the weapon-based martial art, irrespective of their age and gender.Asan's grandson, Prabhakaran told ANI, "Everyone thinks that Silambam is a known art but it is not so and we are currently trying to recreate it into a syllabus."

Prabhakaran said that his grandfather had at his own expense managed to train the residents of Sivakasi and also bore all the costs of refreshments and transportation for students who needed to travel to nearby towns or nearby districts for matches.

Asan had also opened his own training academy, which opens at 9 am and continues classes till midnight.

"Many students who learned Silambam at our school in Sivakasi and Tiruthangal have participated in and won competitions at the state, national and international levels," said Prabhakaran.

"Sixteen of our students participated in the national level competition held in the first week of August in which we won six gold, four silver and six bronze medals. It is a matter of great pride for us that our students have participated in so many competitions and won the medals in this competition at the national level," he said.

The third-generation Silamban master said that they now have four branches in the area for the sole purpose of making Silambam accessible to all.

( With inputs from ANI )

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