On September 24, driving down from Connaught Place to India Gate, I found myself in the midst of a rally. A large group of people, young and old, was walking down the road, holding placards and distributing pamphlets. I’d never seen a more peaceful rally than this one. The public display of heated emotions that characterises most rallies one sees today was quite missing from this one. As traffic slowed to a halt to let the demonstrators pass, I managed to read one of the banners. The demonstrators were all deaf, and were marching to garner support for the inclusion of the Indian sign language as one of the nation’s official languages.
As they walked past my car, I tried to ask them about sign language — through signs and sounds they didn’t really get. A young girl in a white T-shirt looked at me making a wide variety of questioning gestures and said, “This is exactly why we want more and more people to know about sign language and how to use it! We, the deaf and our families, are mostly taught to speak in sign language from the time we’re diagnosed with hearing disability, but unless other people know at least some basic signs, how on earth can we even communicate with them?” I nodded, hoping that was the universal sign for showing I understood.
The demonstrators gave me a little pamphlet that showed basic signs that denoted basic information like “I need a doctor” and “what is your name?” Indian sign language, I learnt, was distinct from sign languages used in other parts of the world. Many European countries and some American states officially recognise their sign languages, but countries like Ireland and India don’t.
This got me thinking. Estimates suggest that the number of deaf people in our country could be as high as 60 million. This means that there are 60 million people who can communicate well enough with one another, but have little hope of communicating with those who can hear! The rally I’d witnessed clearly underscored this need. For if the Indian sign language became one of the official languages of the country, maybe more people would know it existed. Perhaps then, the greater demand for sign interpreters would fuel the employment aspirations of more hearing-impaired people.
Two days later, I went online to learn more about the Indian sign language. Dismayed, I realised the variety of wild gestures I’d made while trying to find out who all the people in the rally were, meant lots of different things in sign language. I’d inadvertently ended up asking them all sorts of questions ranging from “who are you?” to “what is this?” To ensure I didn’t make a fool of myself again, I decided to learn some basic signs (https://bsmedia.business-standard.comwww.deafsigns.org has fairly detailed tutorials, in case anyone’s interested). I also discovered that in sheer coincidence, that day, September 26, was celebrated across the country as the National Day of the Deaf!
A silent demo of signs played on my screen as I tried to emulate them (it was not easy picking up all the nuances, I can tell you that). As the man in the demo fluently moved his hands in a circle and then in his pocket (it denoted “disability benefit”) or beaked his hands over his nose, cupped his throat and then swiftly fluttered his hands (“pelican” to the uninitiated), I found myself drawn into a world of movements, where even the most complex ideas could be expressed by the merest flutter of a hand.
If only there were enough people to understand and speak these sounds of silence…