Thevarayapillai Shanmuganathan

Thevarayapillai Shanmuganathan was born in a hill tea estate in the Badulla District in what was then colonial Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). His family originally came from the Trichy district in Tamil Nadu, India, and had been recruited by the British to manage tea plantations in the area. He spent his formative schooling years in Ceylon, before returning to India to pursue a career in medicine. He undertook his medical undergraduate studies in Thanjvur Medical College (part of the University of Madras) in Tamil Nadu. His undergraduate career will be remembered more for his extracurricular achievements: he set up the first intersport tournament between the various medical schools in the state of Tamil Nadu.

He was a keen follower of politics, at both the local …