Forty-five-year-old R Palaniammal reads with her index fingers, moving them effortlessly over the perforated pages of a Braille book. She has been a proofreader for the past two decades at the Braille press inside Indian Association for the Blind (IAB) in Madurai that comes out with two monthly magazines exclusively for the visually-challenged. The press is equipped with a pair of advanced printing machines that can print about 650 characters in a minute and it takes just about five minutes to print a copy of the 64-page-magazines Vizhi Saval and Braille Manjeri . The Tamil magazines in Braille have about 200 subscribers each, across Tamil Nadu, apart from readers in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Gift of knowledge The magazine in Braille help the blind stay updated with the happenings of the world.
Vizhi Saval is one of its kind, for it carries a wide range of articles contributed by the visually-challenged themselves. “We have writers from all over India contributing stories. We pick the best to publish in the magazine. There’s something for everyone, ranging from stories on serious issues concerning the visually-challenged people to sections like poems, fun stories and even cooking tips and puzzles,” says N Ramani, the editor of the magazine. Launched in 2011, the publication has found favour among people of all age groups. The writers also range from school-goers to professors.
“For instance, a retired professor from Coimbatore has been writing a series on the various laws concerning the differently-abled. These enlighten readers on their rights,” says Ramani. “Likewise, a school teacher from Aruppukottai writes on the history of Braille, a home-maker writes on music and a young businessman writes on how technology can be a tool for the blind.” There are also student writers like Arun Kumar who is pursuing English Literature at The American College and S Panneerselvam, a class X student at the IAB.
Arun, an aspiring athlete and cricket enthusiast, writes about his experiences taking part in para-sports. “I contribute two pages every month and it’s mostly on the avenues for the blind in the sports field,” he says. Panneerselvam is a budding poet and his motivational poems are looked forward to by readers. “A few years ago, I started pouring out my thoughts on paper in the form of poems. My teachers encouraged me to write for the magazine. I am happy that my poems give hope and confidence to many visually-challenged readers.”
It was the vision of S M A Jinnah, the founder of IAB to introduce a newspaper/magazine for the visually-challenged, recalls Ramani. “We initially visualised it as a newsletter that would bring out the activities and achievements of IAB, but later, as ideas poured in and demand grew within the community, we came up with a full-fledged magazine.” Subsequently, Braille Manjeri was launched in 2013 and contains more of general news, current affairs, politics, economy, art and travel. Unlike Vizhi Saval , the content in Braille Manjeri is not generated in-house but picked from a variety of other publications. They also come out with a table-top Braille calender that’s sent to subscribers.
“We enjoy certain leverage like free courier of Braille books offered by India Post. And we don’t have copyright laws binding Braille publications which makes it easier for us. That’s how we are able to provide an annual subscription for just ₹100 and ₹300 for Vizhi Saval and Braille Manjeri respectively,” he adds. “Earlier, we were manually converting content from Tamil or English into Braille but there’s a software now that does the job. However, the popularity of Braille is declining as more people now rely on audio material for studies and scribes for writing exams. We want to promote Braille learning and so far, have published over 600 books in Braille. We have also introduced graphs and tables in Braille.”
