Page 63 - Memorial Book Thilaga Mylvaganam

Thank You, Mrs. Mylvaganam
Shahul Nilar (1963) Royal Primary School.

“These pains you feel are messengers; listen to them” – Rumi

Mrs. Tilaka Mylvaganam was my Third Standard class teacher in 1963
at Royal Primary School, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Geographically, half a
world away, chronologically over half a century ago, yet her influence
in my life is most relevant today. She was kind, but firm, for how else
could one instill discipline is a classroom of some 30 raucous 8 year-

olds!

A memory that percolates across the decades is a vivid image of Mrs.
Mylvaganam grouping the students into teams. Each team had a
captain and… you guessed it - I was the captain of my team. The

teams competed with each other – all in the search for knowledge.
Multiplication tables, spelling challenging words such as “cupboard”,
“Wednesday”, “necessary” and even the names of astronauts. Yuri
Gagarin and John Glenn had orbited the Earth and were discussed in
class.

She trusted me for it was I whom she chose to carry her “term test”
stencil to the school office to produce the end of term examination
papers. I remember her write on the stencil – she would move her
thick gold bangle further up her lower arm so that it would not leave
a mark on the stencil. The stencil was used on the cyclostyle to

produce the copies of the test paper. It all sounds archaic in current
society, but these were the values that teachers like Mrs.
Mylvaganam imparted to me – trust and discipline.

Late Mrs. Tilakavati Mylvaganam 55