FIGHTING FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED Madan Vasishta
When Madan Vasishta lectures his PG or PhD class at Gallaudet University, Washington DC, the students watch. He signs his lessons in American Sign Language to his mixed class of hearing and hearing impaired graduates. He sometimes calls two interpreters — one to voice what he says and the other to sign to him their questions. Vasishta has 120 db bilateral hearing loss and "cannot hear even jet planes."
Hailing from a village in Himachal Pradesh, he dropped out of school due to hearing loss in sixth grade. For the next nine years, he milked buffaloes, ploughed fields and studied his brother's books. He passed Higher Secondary as a private candidate, moved to Delhi, acquired a diploma from the Photography Institute for the Deaf and was soon signing pay slips as Scientific Photographer at the National Physical Laboratory. He also started a night school for the adult deaf with support from the All India Federation of the Deaf (AIFD). The federation asked him to escort a hearing impaired U.S. visitor, and "by the end of the second day she suggested I migrate to Gallaudet. I didn't know what it was but in 1967, I was in Gallaudet."
Equal access
"In India, people ridicule signers," he says in guttural speech. "In the U.S. there is equal access for the hearing impaired in all areas — education, travel and entertainment."
Fingers fly, feet stamp and hands signal fast and furious at Ability Foundation as Vasishta addresses a group of hearing-impaired invitees. "Empower yourself," he gesticulates. "Demand concessions in SMS rates and transport charges, study, compete, get good jobs and insist on being `heard'." He continues, "Don't bicker among yourselves and don't allow others to suppress you." Vasishta has been working for a common Indian Sign Language. Is there a deaf culture? "Yes. In the U.S., generations of hearing-impaired sometimes live as an ethnic minority. Funnily enough, I have close friends who consider themselves culturally deaf. At least I am not that." What would his wish list read like? "Pro-interpreters appointed for government offices, courts, police stations, political assemblies, wherever people gather for information. Phone relay services and compulsory TV/movie captioning. Higher Secondary students choosing to sign up for elective ISL courses. They can become interpreters and teachers for the hearing impaired." He asks for a paper and writes furiously. "The total absence of deaf teachers, people and interpreters at the National Conference of Teachers of Deaf in Chennai is a glaring example of the vassal status the hearing give to the hearing-impaired. The government should require that all NGOs and government agencies have interpreters at their meetings and qualified deaf people be members of advisory committees. This can be done by an amendment of the 1995 Act."
GEETA PADMANABHAN
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