Shankar was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in 1955 and to the Malayan Bar in July 1956. His father was thrilled he chose his family's traditional profession and made immediate arrangements for him to be admitted into the Inner Temple. He changed his mind when his father ordered him to go to Singapore on a government scholarship and opt for law. Shankar originally wanted to study medicine in Edinburgh. He is well remembered for his title role as Antonio in the Society's first major production, Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, which played to packed houses for five nights in August 1952. Musical and Dramatic Society) of the 1920s. Dramatics Society, a successor to the long-dormant VIMADS (V.I. In March 1943, however, the food shortage had become so chronic that he and his brother had to work in the Oki Denki Kabushiki Kaisha at the PNT workshops near the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station.Īfter World War II, Shankar joined Victoria Institution.
Singapore fell on 15 February 1942 and the Japanese took over the administration of the Peninsular immediately after that.īy May 1942, he returned to school where he was taught Japanese songs, and how to read and write Japanese.
However, by early February 1942, his family returned to Peel Road. His family moved to the Glenmarie Estate near Klang (now in Shah Alam) where most of the Brahmin community had gone, and then stayed with old family friends who had a bungalow off Lorong Seputeh in Old Klang Road. In 1941, while in Primary 2 of the Pasar Road School, his studies were disrupted by World War II and the Japanese Occupation. Growing up with friends of many races, he easily picked up Tamil, Malayalam, Cantonese and Malay. Shankar was born in 1932 in Peel Avenue, Kuala Lumpur to a Brahmin family.