We talk, we hear, we see and we tend to think everyone does the same. Talks, hears, sees. That there are others who can’t do so, and that the right to be a part of the mainstream is as much theirs as ours, is a truth many of us often overlook.
Listening to C. Arun Rao makes you realise the flaw that the majority of the able lot suffer from. And how the differently-abled suffer because of it!
Bangalore-based Rao deserves a lot of credit for designing a series of Indian Sign Language (ISL) dictionaries for our hearing impaired, their teachers, instructors and interpreters. For the first time, such dictionaries are going to be widely available in bookshops and online platforms like Flipkart, Amazon and Ebay. In fact, Rao has been doing an impressive service for the promotion of ISL by tailoring courses for both teachers and the taught, uploading simple how-to videos on YouTube, creating India’s first website that teaches sign language, leading a campaign for trained interpreters, etc. But the road to success has been fraught with struggle and disappointments stemming from the nonchalance of the able world which can very well make a difference but has not.
Rao — winner of this year’s NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Award for coming up with first of his ISL dictionaries, “Talk With Your Hands — Sign Language for Beginners”, to hit the stores this September — drives home his point by underlining how the DD1 national news broadcast in sign language since 1988 has been a testament to the fact that deaf people in India use and value it. “Yet, sign language has long been suppressed in India and no serious thought has been given to its dissemination and propagation, leading to a failure in creating a codified format. This, in turn, has become a bane for rehabilitation of deaf people in India.” He draws your attention to the nonchalance with which deaf children are taught in our schools, “how teachers teach by ‘talking’ to them,” how because of the lack of a codified format, “each school with deaf children has a different version of signs that they have developed on their own.”
He holds up a simple truth here, “If all deaf children were taught the language from a primer like other children are taught languages, there would be no problem. We spell apple as we do because we are ‘taught’ to do so.” Rao’s point is, “Like any other language, ISl too needs a process of evolution. For instance, English as a language is not very old in its current form. The works of Chaucer and Shakespeare are as different as can be from today’s English. Spellings and meanings of words have reached their present form through a process of evolution of the language over the years. It is this process that needs to start with reference to ISL.”
Also, “the basic point has been lost on our educators of deaf that they were not required to use or learn sign language.” Rao highlights this as the reason why “no serious attempt has been made to codify ISL and develop teachers to coach children.” Though for some years, it forms part of the Special B Ed. Curriculum, “it is a subject by and large not taught at all.”
Before Rao, some attempts to design ISL dictionaries have been made by NGOs. He points out a basic problem there, “They have been distributed through their own network which means they are not available to the general public.” Rao’s hearing impaired daughter also needed to be taught sign language, the reason why he got exposed to the field.
“I used to walk around the house with her with a book called ‘American Sign English’, because there was no access to an ISL book in the late ’80s. I later found out that there was indeed a book used by a Delhi NGO and they were not distributing it because it was against their policy to promote sign language!”
The first of Rao’s dictionaries includes basic vocabulary to enable beginners and new parents of deaf children to pick up in the open market and learn sign language. “The purpose behind these dictionaries is to underline the need for a codified ISL to gain currency and be freely available,” he says. An added benefit will be its possible application in the job market. “There are many companies who want to hire deaf people and this dictionary will be a boon to them as well. I have had many enquiries from deaf people who want to use it to learn English words,” he says.
Time for the able world to right some wrongs? For the authorities to ponder and act? After all, we have a Disability Commission.
