You must be thinking that I am about to narrate yet another repetitive love story which you hear or see on radio or TV day in and day out.
You are absolutely wrong. If you value the “?”, that is what makes the difference here. Just imagine yourself in a situation where you cannot see and the other side cannot speak. You are BLIND and the other person is DEAF & MUTE. How would they communicate? This is a question which kept oscillating on my mind till I realized that it could be TOUCH but then how could two unknown people touch each other. At the very first instance, how would one tell the other about his/her existence and how would the other respond?
Recently a friend of mine, made my dream come true. Being the Convener of the Delhi Chapter of the Human Library, she organized an event where the readers of the books were mostly deaf and mute leaving aside a few with all functional senses. As soon as I entered the human library showcasing 8 human books created at Springboard, Nehru Place, my curiosity had already piqued. While I was told that sign language would be used as a tool of communication, I had still not connected the dots. The moment I stepped in, I could hear less voices and see more fingers scribbling in the air.
I was informed that translators had volunteered to ensure that human books and their stories are read by those who could never dream of accessing such stories because they couldn’t hear them. Their dream had finally come alive. They could now read the stories through signs and symbols displayed by translators while the orator narrated his story in parallel. Today they were reading human books titled: AMOEBA, EACH ONE FOR HERSELF!, AGAINST ALL ODDS, BROKEN CRAYONS STILL COLOR, NON-BELIEVER TO A BELIEVER, MY HAPPY SIZE!, REFUGEE FROM THE RUINS, DANUESE, WRITINGS ON THE BLACKBOARD, BUDDHA IN DAILY LIFE. These books were stories of impossible being made possible, challenges being conquered against all odds, stories of alternate sexuality and their continuous struggle to survive in this world and so much more.
How many of us have interacted with a Deaf and Mute person? How many of us have seen a visually impaired interacting with a deaf and mute person? These communications are considered impossible and do not fit into the frame of logic fitted in our mind. But sometimes some people think about breaking stereotypes and the frame of logic to bring forward a situation which we never visualize in our brains. That is when Rajiv meets Rama and people like my friend Neha Singh make it come true!