Sunil Vishnu, Karthik Kumar and TM Karthik (TMK) are co-founders of Chennai-based Sideways Training (ST, estb. 2011), a division of Evam Corporate Training Pvt. Ltd, a soft skills training company that uses creative performing arts pedagogies based on theatre, dance, music and games. ST is a new venture of Evam Corporate which also owns Evam Entertainment, an English theatre company co-founded by Sunil Vishnu and Karthik Kumar in 2003 which has staged more than 25 plays and 450 performances.

Newspeg. ST has launched workshops for college students and teachers in partnership with retail expert, consultant, trainer and author V. Rajesh, based on the latter’s 94-page self-help book Out of Syllabus, which expounds on the ‘three-bucket theory’ of career planning. The content of the book has been adapted for theatre-based workshops to train students in behaviour and communication, interview preparation, and develop their employability and career skills. ST’s lively, hands-on workshops have been conducted in 11 colleges including IIM-Bangalore; Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA), Ahmedabad; Chitkara College, Chandigarh and the Chennai Business School. ST has also conducted 130 workshops of varied durations for 35 different companies including Google, Sify, Vodafone and HSBC.

Direct talk. “Today, our workshops engage participants in music, dance, crossword puzzles, contests and role play with an express purpose and agenda. Our emphasis is on creating non-threatening environments and using the media of art and theatre to enable people to shed inhibitions and express themselves freely. Our USP is combining the arts and business to develop leadership and team-building skills and enhance the emotional intelligence and creativity of people,” says Sunil Vishnu.

Genesis. The Evam story began when Karthik Kumar, a chemical engineer of Anna University, Chennai and Sunil Vishnu, a commerce graduate of Bhopal University, signed up for a marketing communications programme with MICA. They started a theatre group in the institute and wrote a joint thesis on the feasibility of a theatre company. After graduation, they parted ways for two years and took up corporate jobs to earn the capital to start their own theatre company. In 2003, both quit their jobs and with an initial investment of Rs.200,000, moved to Chennai and promoted Evam.

The duo collaborated with T.M. Karthik, an engineering graduate of Anna University and well-known stage and film actor ab initio. An engineer with 19 years of experience in IT majors including Cognizant, HCL and Satyam, TMK is also an experienced business and team skills trainer. When ST was promoted in 2011, he joined them as co-founder and chief mentor.

Future plans. “We travel a lot to deliver soft skills training and over the next few years hope to roll out nationally. Almost half of our clients have done repeat courses with us and we plan to develop more performance arts-based pedagogies to fulfil the people skills needs of varied clients,” says Sunil Vishnu.

Right on!

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)