"I’ve dressed over a thousand Tamil brides and the first was when I was just six months married. I then moved to designing and dressing dancers for their arangetrams. I have in the recent past dressed 17 very young girls for 14 arangetrams, the last on October 20."

This is what Mrs. Lingawathy Chelvadurai told me as we sat in the verandah of her Gregory’s Road home in easy conversation. I had told her I wanted to write about her because she is a remarkable woman; remarkable in many ways, one being that she has contributed significantly to keeping intact certain aspects of Tamil culture. She told me that hardly anyone knows her by her real first name, most addressing her as Vatha. The younger children she dresses for their debut dances call her Vathachchi, while the older ones call her Vathamammi.

Costume designer and dresser through love of both

She designs the costumes for these young Bharatha Natyam dancers, making each one distinct in style, such that no two costumes of hers are similar. She had dressed dancers of yesteryear – the pupils of Hemalatha Miranda, Kamala Johnpillai, Padmini Dahanayake Ariadasa, Kamala Jayatilleke and Shanti Rajendran. Then the costumes were usually made by draping a rich Indian sari in the particular style. Now saris are cut up and sewn to the designs Vatha thinks up. If the costume is not too intricate one sari is sufficient for both costume and blouse. If not, a sari and matching material have to be used, all rich in gold work. The sewing is done by Maya de Silva and these two have worked in combination for the last 10 years.

More intriguing to me were the hair decorations (konda malas etc) that Vatha designs, each an elaborate cluster of fresh flowers placed at the back of the head from which cascades down the long stretch along the dancer’s hair plait. The hair decorations, if I may call these exquisite works of art ‘decorations’, are designed to match perfectly the dancer’s costume in colours, flowers selected and of course pattern. Vatha designs them and Mani who knows the art of stringing flowers together, executes the job.

Her involvement does not end here. She dresses the dancers usually at her home and then follows them to the venue of the arangetram – Visakha Vidyalaya, Bishop’s College Auditorium or the BMICH. All jewellery is dexterously pinned onto the costume so the girl can dance freely. She puts on the finishing touches to her beauties at the venue and then sits right through the performance in the green room ready for quick changes in costume and in case of any emergency like an ornament coming unhooked.

Most of the girls she’s dressed have been from Visakha Vidyalaya since Priyadharshini Bandara, who trains the girls in Bharatha Natyam in this school, insists on Vatha doing the dressing of the girls. This was how she got totally involved in designing all the costumes of more than a hundred actresses when three years ago Priyadharshini produced the ballet Asokamala and Saliya. The costumes for the ballet were somewhat different, being the rodiya style with very bare midriffs.

I know how Vatha traveled to dress a bride in Canada just a couple of years ago. She had a stop-over in Atlanta and an architect who had worked under her son, on the verandah of her home and got to admire her, met her in the Atlanta airport. She told him she had been overweight in baggage but the check-in officers in Katunayake had let her through. She was taking the pahanas needed – large and small, brass and clay - plus the betel leaves and so much more since she was not only dressing the bride but was doing the décor for the wedding reception.

Famous father and family

Vatha is the third in a family of six, two boys and four girls of C Sunderalingam, the firebrand, very well known politician representing Vavuniya who served as a Minister in D S Senanayake’s Cabinet. Asked about her father’s career, she said: "He was all sorts of persons!" In England he passed both the Ceylon Civil Service and Indian Civil Service exams and opted to work in his home country. While serving in Badulla he said he got sick of signing gun licenses. So he resigned government service, though in an elite service, and moved to being vice-principal of Ananda College and then to mathematics professor in the University of Ceylon. Eligible, with the required seniority to be Vice Chancellor, he found that he was denied the position and ``a person called Ivor Jennings’’ was being brought down from England. He protested to D S Senanayake and received the pithy though unhelpful comment: "Only a torpedo can get you the post." World War II was raging at the time and Jennings was traveling by ship. Mr. Sunderalingam resigned his professorship and took to politics, selecting to represent Vavuniya so he could develop this very disadvantaged and neglected area. His daughter, Vatha, acted as his secretary and she says many of D.S’s speeches were written by her father and typed by her. In fact on her wedding day, she had to take dictation from her father before she dressed herself!

Her father inserted an advertisement in the papers inviting people for his daughter’s wedding. D S Senanayake, she told me laughingly, had asked her father why he had not been invited. After all he was Prime Minister and the father of the bride a Minister in his Cabinet. Mr Sunderalingam had replied there was a paper notice and no personal invitations were sent. "I cannot attend the wedding if not invited," The PM had said. "Then stay away," had been the reply. D S Senanayake sent the bride a gift of Rs 101, and stayed away!

The three daughters were named Lingambihai, Lingawathy, Lingamani and Lingeswary abbreviated to Linga, Vatha, Mani and Isha. Vatha was married at 21 to engineer K. Chelvadurai, later Director of Colombo Commercial Co. Mr Chelvadurai it was who was principally responsible for building Hunas Falls Hotel. He died while the hotel was nearing completion.

"I have done all my dressing – brides and dancers – completely free of charge because marriage to us Tamils and Hindus is very important and I adore dancing. People often give me gifts although I have made it known I do not want anything." She passed on this love of dancing to her second son, Anjalendran, the architect, who studied Bharatha Natyam, Kathak and Manipuri. Recently, on being advised to take some form of regular exercise to control his cholesterol levels, Anjalendran resumed dancing.

"I started dressing dancers for their arangetrams in 2001, once I got over my husband’s death. Now its time to say that’s it. I find I am too old to endure the intense involvement though I love designing the dancers’ clothes and flowers for their hair and dressing them."

Vatha is a woman to admire, to emulate too. She is full of the joy of living; she’s gracious; she’s generous; quick to friendship and to laugh; and a person who’s contributed much towards sustaining Tamil Hindu culture.