A few minutes into conversation with Thavasothy S. Mailvaganam Pillai is enough to establish what an eloquent and erudite person this former teacher and current BAC lecturer is. Visually impaired since birth, this youngest of four children readily admits he was fortunate to have been born in a well to do family, with parents who, upon realising there was something wrong with their baby, immediately sought treatment not just in his country of birth Sri Lanka, but also in neighbouring India and as far away as Singapore and even Australia. ‘Well, I’ve never known what my surrounding atmosphere looks like so there’s nothing to miss but through feel, touch and sound there’s so much that one can glean,’ he says, explaining how he began to deal with his handicap in the early days. The future, however, had other plans for Thava and his family. His engineer father was offered a posting in the Malayan railways, which meant little Thava, who was two at the time, left his birthland to move to their railway quarters in Bangsar. Unaware of schools for special needs children in Malaysia, his parents kept their son at home until the age of nine, but not without home tuition or Indian classical music training at the Sangeetha Sabha in Vivekananda Ashram. Thava has vivid memory of having sung for the superstar Indian actress and renowned dancer, Padmini, and her sister, also an actress and accomplished dancer. Fate, it seemed, was not about to leave Thava to his own devices for too long.