Art for art's

The disabled find a platform to express themselves

S Rama Mani with her brother V Seetaramachanjulu with their Batik work exhibited at the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Madras Association of the Deaf held at Little Flower Convent Higher Secondary School for the Hearing Impaired in the city on Sunday

ART can speak, so can relationships. There are a few artists who literally cannot speak or hear, but art hasunited them. The hearing and speech impaired persons had displayed their works of art at an exhibition organised by the Madras Association of The Deaf in Chennai on Sunday.

They are not just artists, but entrepreneurs promoting their products along with their friends or siblings. For instance, Sekar, Raju and Sreenivasan who have been friends for more than 25 years now. All of them are hearing and speech impaired, but what has forged their friendship is their interest for Batik painting. They had met at a Batik class organised years ago for the disabled.

Sekar said (in sign language),"One thing was common. All of us wanted to do something and Batik brought us on the same platform." Though, all of them found different jobs, they continued their work in Batik prints.

Initially, there were problems to get started. According to Sekar, it was necessary to market the products and coinmunication was vital. Business started off with few thousands as investment in a small room.

"Hard work is important and that brought us customers. We were expressive in bur own way," said Sekar.

It was no different for the sisters-brother trio who were selling their paintings and dolls. S Rama Mani, Ranganayaki and their brother Seetaramachanjulu, were born hearing-andspeech impaired. Inspired by their grandfather, Ranganayaki and Seetaramachanjulu started painting, while Rama Mani made dolls.

Seetaramachanjulu was initially an illustrator for a famous children's magazine till he found a government job. "Even now I continue to freelance for the magazine. All of us want to work together. This is our own world and we have no regrets about our disability," he expressed.

There were also some individuals who were trying to be different even in their old age. Joseph John (72) is retired and wants to paint and exhibit his work. Like him, Prabhakar (65) said the world of painting was silent yet expressive like them.

Though different in many ways, all they wanted was a medium to express themselves and they discovered art.