Hello Everybody,
This is my concluding blog about my documentary project.....this blog discusses a lot about the content exhibited in the documentary.
Much to my surprise and satisfaction, I found that my research was in sync with my actual observations of the deaf community. One of the most important revelations was that there lies an extreme polarity between the hearing and deaf community in India. The hearing people are keen to make deaf people 'hearing.' They want deaf children to learn to lip read and ultimately talk like 'normal' hearing people.
Deaf people, on the contrary, feel that they have every right to maintain their deaf identity and are proud of their 'deaf hood.' They hope to give birth to future deaf generations and want acknowledgment and recognition for their language, identity, and choice within the larger hearing society. The discrimination and marginalization of the minority deaf community at the hands of the majority hearing world is termed by deaf people as 'Audism,' which can be compared to 'Racism' according to them (discrimination against deaf people because of their inability to hear).
In 1910, George Veditz described 'Deaf' as “first, last and for all time, the people of the eye”. This aspect of deaf life was seen during the shooting of the documentary. While conducting day-to-day activities in the hearing world, deaf people were not scared to travel, or ride vehicles, because they were confident of their visual sense. According to them, the eye contact was extremely important for them in their communication too. Even during the interviews, most deaf people found it impossible to look in to the camera and sign. The eye contact with the interviewer was absolutely necessary for them.
Whenever a deaf person meets another deaf person, he/ she is curious to know whether the other person is 'deaf/hearing'. The world for them belongs only in two parts, 'hearing’, and 'deaf'. The boundaries of religion, country, caste, color do not exist for them.
My two deaf subjects, Sunil and Shweta, could lip read and talk, but they both chose to sign and not talk during the interviews. According to them, it was against the ethics of deaf culture to talk!
Most deaf people follow the 90 % rule in life. Out of all the ten deaf subjects I interviewed, only two had deaf had deaf families. Barring them, all had hearing families. The interviewees spoke about their communication problems with their parents. They also mentioned about their parents' reluctance to communicate with them in sign language.
A deaf girl's parents were awfully worried about her marriage, and lamented that her prospects of getting a 'normal' (hearing) bridegroom are minimal. Heena ( deaf girl), on the other hand, is sure of getting married to a deaf boy only. Hearing parents hoped for a miracle to happen and make their children hearing. I had mixed observations regarding this idea during my interactions with deaf, as well as hearing, parents. A widow mother (herself deaf) of two deaf children in their mid-twenties, wanted at least one 'hearing' child to help her in communicating with hearing world. On the other hand, another deaf couple, who had a hearing daughter, Kimaya, were proud to make Kimaya a part of their community by teaching her sign language. They were candid enough to express that they would have loved Kimaya to be deaf and hoped for their next child to be deaf.
During the shooting of the video, I observed that all deaf subjects were proud to be deaf and wanted to have deaf partners, future deaf generations, and the opportunity for making independent choices like any hearing person.
There are 'imagined' problems in the minds of hearing people while recruiting deaf people. The hearing population is unaware of the capabilities of deaf people due to sheer ignorance and lack of interest in understanding them. Government's apathy and lack of will is one of the many reasons for the poor situation of deaf people.
But the Indian government's apathy towards deaf people has ironically helped the country in preserving deaf culture. For example, in Denmark, the government sponsors cochlear implants for deaf people. Therefore, the deaf population in Denmark is decreasing day-by-day. The Indian government, on the other hand, does not encourage any such measures, which helps deaf people to maintain their 'deaf hood. '
Deaf schools in India have adopted oral methods only. Even media and public places lack a deaf- friendly environment. TV channels and films do not use captions. There are no interpreters at railways stations, hospitals, banks, and in government offices. The only way for deaf people to connect to the hearing world is through text messages on mobile phones. Deaf people heavily rely on mobile phones. One of the subjects even said that he cannot imagine his life without mobiles anymore.
But the hallmark of Indian deaf culture is Indian sign language. The introduction of Indian Sign Language (ISL) has empowered the deaf population, at least in the urban societies in India. However, the awareness and spread of ISL is still in its infancy in the country. The government's lack of will and support to make it nationally recognized and give it an academic status in deaf schools still keeps the language beyond the reach of deaf people in small cities.
The subjects spoke a lot about the lack of support for ISL at homes, too. Their parents refuse to learn the language. People in the majority hearing community do not have awareness about ISL. This divide between a deaf and hearing community has caused deaf people to look for avenues of progress and development in their own community only, which, again, are fairly limited. As an ISL instructor said: deaf people can progress only if they compete within the deaf community.
Conclusion
Beyond Silence is a documentary that is made with an intention of understanding the perspective of the deaf people in India. India, a country with a population of around one billion people, lacks the basic infrastructure and social consciousness to accommodate the “voices” of deaf people. This documentary is made with an intention of understanding these hidden voices in their own “words, language, and culture.” The documentary is made to reach out to a wider audience all around the world through film and video festivals, private screenings, and media workshops.
India is my home country, and my previous experience of working in the media industry facilitated my understanding of the basic societal values and orientation of the people belonging to the deaf community. This video project is a humble attempt to acknowledge the existence of a living, competent, and thinking deaf community that has the ability to communicate “beyond silence.”
My entire experience, close to about a year now, about reading, writing, interacting, and shooting deaf life so closely has brought about lot of revelations and understanding about deaf people in India.
I could observe through the process of making this documentary that these people just expect one thing from the larger hearing community. 'Live and Let Live.' They do not ask for any special favors, but are very vociferously ready to fight for their rights. Having interpreters is their right, and they want the government and the public to support it. Sign language is the mother tongue of deaf people and they want their own families, teachers and society to accept that. The Indian Sign Language (ISL) is the most important characteristic of the Indian deaf culture.
I hope the distribution and exhibition of this documentary helps deaf community in India to strengthen their fight for their basic rights, like the recognition and adoption of sign language in schools and in the society, awareness about deaf culture and motivation of the entertainment media in the country to adopt captioning.
My attempt has been to capture the real emotion that lies in the thriving deaf population in the city of Mumbai. They are all set to establish the first ever deaf college in the country in the year 2009. There is a long way to go, but at least the march has begun. The documentary, Beyond Silence, is an attempt to capture the essence of their struggle, perseverance, and indomitable spirit.
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Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Dispatches from the World of Deaf--Beyond Silence Part 3
This post will concentrate primarily on all my technical challenges during the shoot.
According to my earlier post, all my interviews barring a few had all the ‘talking’ done through Signs. I did not use any external audio equipment throughout the shoot. My interviews with the deaf subjects were all shot in their own mother tongue, the Indian Sign language.
This is the way we operated: I conveyed the question to my interpreter in English/Hindi, she explained it to the deaf subjects through signs. After my interviewee had understood the question he/she would answer it again in sign, and then I would have the interpreter summarize it for me on camera. This was to facilitate my understanding about the content of their signs.
During my first interview I had resorted to on the spot interpreting, but my interpreter is not a professional yet, at times she took time to understand their signs that would lead to slightly delayed interpreting ( India has 21 official spoken languages, though the country today has a single Indian Sign Language, the ‘dialectic’ version of sign languages are very much prevalent in the day to day communication of the deaf people, this aspect very often poses a tough challenge for the interpreters). Also I intended to have the natural sounds in the background during their interviews to establish the location, situation and general look and feel of the city.This was perhaps the most important reason. Using the mode of on the spot interpreting would have spoilt the entire feel of capturing the natural sound. This documentary will have the use of captions and subtitling all through out. I am still not sure if I am going to use my interpreter's voice as a voice-over for the text on the screen. Personally I feel subtitles, can actually lead to lot of reading while watching the images, I have always found it a bit agonizing after few minutes. For that very purpose, I got all my interviews shot in sign language interpreted again by my interpreter, just for the audio purpose. I have audio files recorded seperately which can give me an option of using or not using it. Lets see!
However, I do have interviews shot in spoken words as well. The interviews with the hearing parents, the interview with Michael Morgan , the Director of Ishara foundation, the one and only one institute in India that works to empower the Deaf in the country through education using bilingual communication.
With regards to the technical aspects, some of the other challenges were; adequate lack of space and lighting conditions. Our interviews were shot mostly in people’s houses and in the Ishara foundation. Much to my surprise and paranoia I found on the very first day that the walls of the Ishara foundation were painted with blue color paint! Most of my B-roll was shot in that one room painted in blue. This place was very small and always filled with students, instructors and the staff. The houses that we visited to shoot with the interviewees also did not have the best lighting conditions. I had no extra budget planned to hire expensive lights for both indoor as well as outdoor shooting. We resorted to shooting maximum in the day light. But more than a couple of times we had to shoot very late in the night, at that time we used a very basic tungsten-halogen light. During the day time shooting, amidst those blue walls and not well lit homes, often the cameraman had to keep the iris full open to get the right amount of brightness in the viewfinder.
Most of the shooting for the documentary has happened by using hand held camera technique. Reasons; lack of space and occurence of too many events at the same time. But all along what has been very intriguing and a revelation for me is the bursting of the myth that the interpretation of the sign language is the exact translation of the content. Much later in my production, I realised that not knowing their language has left me to understand only the 'interpretation' of the Deaf's thoughts. Until I learn the language myself I will perhaps never know what did they actually say or rather meant. For the time being I would be concentrating on my views and conclusions about all the communication I had with them only through interpreting.
To be continued................
According to my earlier post, all my interviews barring a few had all the ‘talking’ done through Signs. I did not use any external audio equipment throughout the shoot. My interviews with the deaf subjects were all shot in their own mother tongue, the Indian Sign language.
This is the way we operated: I conveyed the question to my interpreter in English/Hindi, she explained it to the deaf subjects through signs. After my interviewee had understood the question he/she would answer it again in sign, and then I would have the interpreter summarize it for me on camera. This was to facilitate my understanding about the content of their signs.
During my first interview I had resorted to on the spot interpreting, but my interpreter is not a professional yet, at times she took time to understand their signs that would lead to slightly delayed interpreting ( India has 21 official spoken languages, though the country today has a single Indian Sign Language, the ‘dialectic’ version of sign languages are very much prevalent in the day to day communication of the deaf people, this aspect very often poses a tough challenge for the interpreters). Also I intended to have the natural sounds in the background during their interviews to establish the location, situation and general look and feel of the city.This was perhaps the most important reason. Using the mode of on the spot interpreting would have spoilt the entire feel of capturing the natural sound. This documentary will have the use of captions and subtitling all through out. I am still not sure if I am going to use my interpreter's voice as a voice-over for the text on the screen. Personally I feel subtitles, can actually lead to lot of reading while watching the images, I have always found it a bit agonizing after few minutes. For that very purpose, I got all my interviews shot in sign language interpreted again by my interpreter, just for the audio purpose. I have audio files recorded seperately which can give me an option of using or not using it. Lets see!
However, I do have interviews shot in spoken words as well. The interviews with the hearing parents, the interview with Michael Morgan , the Director of Ishara foundation, the one and only one institute in India that works to empower the Deaf in the country through education using bilingual communication.
With regards to the technical aspects, some of the other challenges were; adequate lack of space and lighting conditions. Our interviews were shot mostly in people’s houses and in the Ishara foundation. Much to my surprise and paranoia I found on the very first day that the walls of the Ishara foundation were painted with blue color paint! Most of my B-roll was shot in that one room painted in blue. This place was very small and always filled with students, instructors and the staff. The houses that we visited to shoot with the interviewees also did not have the best lighting conditions. I had no extra budget planned to hire expensive lights for both indoor as well as outdoor shooting. We resorted to shooting maximum in the day light. But more than a couple of times we had to shoot very late in the night, at that time we used a very basic tungsten-halogen light. During the day time shooting, amidst those blue walls and not well lit homes, often the cameraman had to keep the iris full open to get the right amount of brightness in the viewfinder.
Most of the shooting for the documentary has happened by using hand held camera technique. Reasons; lack of space and occurence of too many events at the same time. But all along what has been very intriguing and a revelation for me is the bursting of the myth that the interpretation of the sign language is the exact translation of the content. Much later in my production, I realised that not knowing their language has left me to understand only the 'interpretation' of the Deaf's thoughts. Until I learn the language myself I will perhaps never know what did they actually say or rather meant. For the time being I would be concentrating on my views and conclusions about all the communication I had with them only through interpreting.
To be continued................
Dispatches from the world of Deaf-- Beyond Silence ( Part 2)
The sign language students around me were curious to know about the topic. The answer was pretty simple.
India has arguably the largest deaf population in the world, around 4 million, but the number of interpreters can be counted on fingers! Sign language is still not an officially recognized language by the government.
At the fall’07 semester here in the US, during the welcome speech delivered by the President of the SFSU, I saw an interpreter standing there and signing in front of the audience. In all my 28 years of life in India, I had never ever witnessed any scene like that! This experience was truly new and intriguing for me. I was a bit disturbed and very inquisitive at the same time to know more about why India had no acknowledgement of this language and the community called, DEAF. I wanted to know about these people who are completely marginalized in the Indian society. That was one of the trigger points to take up this topic.
After the first visit on 9th June in that institute, I was privileged to be in constant touch with the deaf community in the city of Mumbai for almost two months. My first ten days were spent only in getting to know them, as in knowing the various members of the deaf community, interacting with them regarding their everyday challenges, aspirations, agonies, and lifestyle.
I started short listing the candidates for my interviews as well, depending on their backgrounds and experiences. It was just fascinating to choose and decide about the content of their individual interviews. To be honest, I was awfully confused in deciding who should be picked and who should be dropped. Each and every individual I met had some amazing stories to share. But I did make some choices there.
Simultaneously I started preparing on the production front. Before even going to India for the shoot, I was aware that my communication with the Deaf was possible only through an interpreter. I thought it would be all fine. But within a week I realized that not knowing the sign language could be a serious impediment in getting the desired answers from my subjects! On the flip side I also felt that my ignorance about their language and culture would help me in my objective to have a ‘peep in their lives,’ intensifying an outsider’s perspective. The objective of this documentary is definitely to peep in to their lives and understand what it is to be deaf in a country like India, specifically in a metro like Mumbai (Bombay).
I was also a bit jittery about their possible consciousness in front of the cameras. To my utter surprise, the deaf community did not have an iota of discomfort in the presence of the camera. I have seen most hearing people get conscious whenever a camera is put on their face, but for all the reasons unknown the deaf people were amazingly at ease with the camera….the camera just didn’t bother them!
I met my cameraman a week before we started shooting. He was excited about the idea as he had never shot anything like this before. My main contact person and also the content expert was my interpreter. So we were a team of three.
I chose to use two cameras for the project: PD-170 and a GS 500. After arriving in Mumbai, I discovered that the city is not the same as it was two and half years back when I left it for good.
The terrorism threat has left no corner of the world untouched, Mumbai also has been a target before being the world’s second most populous city along with the commercial, financial, and entertainment capital of India. The city is under heavy security regulations today. Most public places like the railway stations, beaches, parks etc prohibit using of cameras without permission!
The only way out was to use a camcorder 3CCD GS 500 in such places. Nobody cared about whether it was a 3 CCD or a 1 CCD, just because it was ‘silver’ looking, I could get away a zillion times by saying that I am making just a home video or taking snaps . The PD-170 camera ‘the black professional camera’ would attract lot of attention. So we avoided that in the public places. I had no money to pay for permissions. So the PD was out of question. The PD camera was primarily used for indoors; interviews etc.
Also in terms of matching the footage from both the cameras in the edit, the PD and the GS 500 came pretty close.
I did not carry any sound equipment with me because I did not have any deliberate sound! All my interviews were shot in sign language…..But here was the next challenge, how was I going to know what they spoke during the interviews, how was I going to take a call if the interview was good/bad/average?
To be continued……
India has arguably the largest deaf population in the world, around 4 million, but the number of interpreters can be counted on fingers! Sign language is still not an officially recognized language by the government.
At the fall’07 semester here in the US, during the welcome speech delivered by the President of the SFSU, I saw an interpreter standing there and signing in front of the audience. In all my 28 years of life in India, I had never ever witnessed any scene like that! This experience was truly new and intriguing for me. I was a bit disturbed and very inquisitive at the same time to know more about why India had no acknowledgement of this language and the community called, DEAF. I wanted to know about these people who are completely marginalized in the Indian society. That was one of the trigger points to take up this topic.
After the first visit on 9th June in that institute, I was privileged to be in constant touch with the deaf community in the city of Mumbai for almost two months. My first ten days were spent only in getting to know them, as in knowing the various members of the deaf community, interacting with them regarding their everyday challenges, aspirations, agonies, and lifestyle.
I started short listing the candidates for my interviews as well, depending on their backgrounds and experiences. It was just fascinating to choose and decide about the content of their individual interviews. To be honest, I was awfully confused in deciding who should be picked and who should be dropped. Each and every individual I met had some amazing stories to share. But I did make some choices there.
Simultaneously I started preparing on the production front. Before even going to India for the shoot, I was aware that my communication with the Deaf was possible only through an interpreter. I thought it would be all fine. But within a week I realized that not knowing the sign language could be a serious impediment in getting the desired answers from my subjects! On the flip side I also felt that my ignorance about their language and culture would help me in my objective to have a ‘peep in their lives,’ intensifying an outsider’s perspective. The objective of this documentary is definitely to peep in to their lives and understand what it is to be deaf in a country like India, specifically in a metro like Mumbai (Bombay).
I was also a bit jittery about their possible consciousness in front of the cameras. To my utter surprise, the deaf community did not have an iota of discomfort in the presence of the camera. I have seen most hearing people get conscious whenever a camera is put on their face, but for all the reasons unknown the deaf people were amazingly at ease with the camera….the camera just didn’t bother them!
I met my cameraman a week before we started shooting. He was excited about the idea as he had never shot anything like this before. My main contact person and also the content expert was my interpreter. So we were a team of three.
I chose to use two cameras for the project: PD-170 and a GS 500. After arriving in Mumbai, I discovered that the city is not the same as it was two and half years back when I left it for good.
The terrorism threat has left no corner of the world untouched, Mumbai also has been a target before being the world’s second most populous city along with the commercial, financial, and entertainment capital of India. The city is under heavy security regulations today. Most public places like the railway stations, beaches, parks etc prohibit using of cameras without permission!
The only way out was to use a camcorder 3CCD GS 500 in such places. Nobody cared about whether it was a 3 CCD or a 1 CCD, just because it was ‘silver’ looking, I could get away a zillion times by saying that I am making just a home video or taking snaps . The PD-170 camera ‘the black professional camera’ would attract lot of attention. So we avoided that in the public places. I had no money to pay for permissions. So the PD was out of question. The PD camera was primarily used for indoors; interviews etc.
Also in terms of matching the footage from both the cameras in the edit, the PD and the GS 500 came pretty close.
I did not carry any sound equipment with me because I did not have any deliberate sound! All my interviews were shot in sign language…..But here was the next challenge, how was I going to know what they spoke during the interviews, how was I going to take a call if the interview was good/bad/average?
To be continued……
Dispatches from the world of Deaf-- Beyond Silence ( Part 1)
Hi Everybody,
Today exactly two weeks after arriving from India, I have decided to write a series of blogs about my creative project for Fall 2008 that I shot in India. I would like to share here some of my views, observations, learnings, and but ofcourse production experiences that I witnessed during the process of shooting this project in India. The title of the project is " Beyond Silence." This is a documentary project based on the lives of deaf people in the city of Mumbai ( Bombay). This video was shot for a period of about 2 months from June'08 to Aug'08.
I landed in India on 7th June'08 and started with the pre-production on 9th June. From there on it was a journey that was fascinating and intriguing filled with surprises, excitement, anxiety,at times frustration and yes of course immense satisfaction and joy too.
Before even my plane landed at the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport of Mumbai, heavy rains started splashing the windows of my aircraft. It was 2:00am , and the flight had already got delayed because of the bad weather. The normal air journey to India from CA takes 24 hours and because of the delay, my air travel had got in its 25th hour!!! I was losing my patience.Tired, I sat inside the plane looking helplessly in the 'darkness' outside the window. I could not have ever imagined such a 'teary' start for my project. But I had no right to complain. I had decided to do the project in the peak monsoon season( June-Sept) of India. Amongst many other things, Mumbai is famous for its crowd, and monsoon. And I had planned for a semester now to fly half way across the globe to embrace both. What a timing indeed!
9th June, it was raining too hard, I was lazing on the couch enjoying watching the wet Mumbai around me from my parents home. I was heavily jet lagged, it was a perfect time to sip some chai, laze down in a blanket and chat with my family.
Instead I decided it to be the first day of my pre-production. I had to get on with it. After all it was rainy season, the weather was not going to change for the next three -four months!
My interpretor, Vidya Iyer, with whom I had communicated for the past four months, while working on the proposal, took me to her institute, The National Institute of Hearing Handicapped ( NIHH). Currently, she is pursuing her Indian Sign language studies there. It was late evening, very gloomy,Mumbai was getting beaten by heavy rains, and my heart was beating fast too. I dont know why, but I was a bit nervous about getting in to the actual doing of things. Its a strange feeling, but all through out my spring'08 semester, I was thinking, planning , and imagining about this day. Believe it or not, this was the first time I was actually going to meet deaf people. I had never had a personal interaction whatsoever with them through out my life. What??? well yes, I had only seen them around me, few times while in India. Bollywood definetly was a window at times to peep in to their lives. But never had taken this conscious step to actually go and meet them. Forget about shooting a film with them, my major concern at that moment was, what am I going to " talk" to them?
Within no time I saw myself amidst fifteen young people who were very busy 'talking,' but there was absolutely no sound, forget noise! After 10 minutes or so, that silence was deafening! I was yearning for somebody to talk, as in make some sound.....
It was a second level Indian sign langiage class, where all the students, were 'hearing,'( this is the term used by the Deaf in India to address non-deaf people), but were communicating only through "signs." For the first time it occured to me that I am 'hearing'!
After some time, the interpreter asked me to introduce myself and answer their question about " Why did I choose to make a documentary on the lives of deaf people in India?"
I started 'talking' as a hearing person, and she started 'talking/signing' as a non-hearing person. We continued this mode of communication through out the shooting of this documentary for about two months.
to be continued..........
Today exactly two weeks after arriving from India, I have decided to write a series of blogs about my creative project for Fall 2008 that I shot in India. I would like to share here some of my views, observations, learnings, and but ofcourse production experiences that I witnessed during the process of shooting this project in India. The title of the project is " Beyond Silence." This is a documentary project based on the lives of deaf people in the city of Mumbai ( Bombay). This video was shot for a period of about 2 months from June'08 to Aug'08.
I landed in India on 7th June'08 and started with the pre-production on 9th June. From there on it was a journey that was fascinating and intriguing filled with surprises, excitement, anxiety,at times frustration and yes of course immense satisfaction and joy too.
Before even my plane landed at the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport of Mumbai, heavy rains started splashing the windows of my aircraft. It was 2:00am , and the flight had already got delayed because of the bad weather. The normal air journey to India from CA takes 24 hours and because of the delay, my air travel had got in its 25th hour!!! I was losing my patience.Tired, I sat inside the plane looking helplessly in the 'darkness' outside the window. I could not have ever imagined such a 'teary' start for my project. But I had no right to complain. I had decided to do the project in the peak monsoon season( June-Sept) of India. Amongst many other things, Mumbai is famous for its crowd, and monsoon. And I had planned for a semester now to fly half way across the globe to embrace both. What a timing indeed!
9th June, it was raining too hard, I was lazing on the couch enjoying watching the wet Mumbai around me from my parents home. I was heavily jet lagged, it was a perfect time to sip some chai, laze down in a blanket and chat with my family.
Instead I decided it to be the first day of my pre-production. I had to get on with it. After all it was rainy season, the weather was not going to change for the next three -four months!
My interpretor, Vidya Iyer, with whom I had communicated for the past four months, while working on the proposal, took me to her institute, The National Institute of Hearing Handicapped ( NIHH). Currently, she is pursuing her Indian Sign language studies there. It was late evening, very gloomy,Mumbai was getting beaten by heavy rains, and my heart was beating fast too. I dont know why, but I was a bit nervous about getting in to the actual doing of things. Its a strange feeling, but all through out my spring'08 semester, I was thinking, planning , and imagining about this day. Believe it or not, this was the first time I was actually going to meet deaf people. I had never had a personal interaction whatsoever with them through out my life. What??? well yes, I had only seen them around me, few times while in India. Bollywood definetly was a window at times to peep in to their lives. But never had taken this conscious step to actually go and meet them. Forget about shooting a film with them, my major concern at that moment was, what am I going to " talk" to them?
Within no time I saw myself amidst fifteen young people who were very busy 'talking,' but there was absolutely no sound, forget noise! After 10 minutes or so, that silence was deafening! I was yearning for somebody to talk, as in make some sound.....
It was a second level Indian sign langiage class, where all the students, were 'hearing,'( this is the term used by the Deaf in India to address non-deaf people), but were communicating only through "signs." For the first time it occured to me that I am 'hearing'!
After some time, the interpreter asked me to introduce myself and answer their question about " Why did I choose to make a documentary on the lives of deaf people in India?"
I started 'talking' as a hearing person, and she started 'talking/signing' as a non-hearing person. We continued this mode of communication through out the shooting of this documentary for about two months.
to be continued..........
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