Recently I read a story of how an electronics giant trained an entire community to learn sign language as a special gesture towards a deaf person. The idea was to bridge the gap between two contrasting worlds. It reminded me of a somewhat similar incident that took place more than three decades ago.
It is the story of Naina Singh. When I first saw her, she was peeking from behind her father, clutching his dhoti (a loose piece of clothing wrapped around the lower half of the body) rather tight. As he prodded her to come forward and greet me, the seven-year-old hesitated. When I smiled at her, she smiled back sheepishly with a nod as if she approved of me.
Her father Bhuvan Singh worked a low-paid job in my office. He had come with a request that my wife give tuitions in English as Naina was being repeatedly reprimanded in school for poor performance in the said subject. She could not speak or write correctly and was punished almost daily for leaving homework incomplete or for her inability to read out words in class.
Naina hardly talked. Several efforts to lure her into responding to even silly questions did not fetch any results. She would, at the most smile. Over the next few days, it slowly came into light that she was a victim of an inferiority complex due to her consistent poor marks in school. Even though Naina was fairly intelligent, her problem, it seems, was that she came from a family that largely spoke a Hindi dialect.
Besides the fact that her parents were illiterate, none of the neighbours or extended family spoke in English. More than that, whenever she tried to rehearse on her own, the women in her neighbourhood often reminded her that studying (and subsequently learning English) would not take her anywhere because a woman is meant to eventually get married, bear children and cook for the family. The nagging and lack of support was killing the enthusiasm in her and she was becoming quieter and quieter.
Upon learning that her two month-long summer vacations were going to start in a few days’ time, my wife and I came up with a plan to help Naina. Ours is a joint family and we were fortunate to have some very understanding neighbours. One Saturday evening, we invited them all over a community dinner and informed them of our intent to help Naina. Together, we devised some methods and everybody decided to be part of it.
I asked Naina and her mother to come over to stay at our place for two months on a local holiday. While her mother got busy helping my family with daily household chores, Naina was encouraged to play and mix up with the kids in my family and in the neighbourhood.
The game started.
My wife and I would ask her to do something but always gave the instructions in English. Naina would look at us boggled. We would then repeat each and every word, slowly, and explain in English. For instance, I would send her to buy toffees or other confectionery from the grocery store next door. She was expected to ask for the toffees in English.
Once, she cheated and asked for them in Hindi. Mishra, the shopkeeper, turned a deaf ear. Naina stood there, clutching her frock and struggling to talk as tears rolled down her cheeks. Finally, she spoke, but in wrong English, “I want to ate the two taaffees”, she said. Mishra smiled at her and engaged in a conversation. He offered her two free toffees and “not taaffees” if she could help him find any seven colours in his store. Having forgotten her verbal struggle, Naina went excitedly looking for them. Mishra then made her spell out each colour in English. At my place, the entire family talked to her only in English.
Three weeks down, we saw a phenomenal change in her. We heard Naina giggle and laugh full-throttle. She slowly started taking interest in reading English comics stacked by us cleverly in different locations. A month-and-a-half later, we were stunned when she offered to help read the English newspaper to the elderly couple in our neighbourhood. Two months later, it was time for her to return to her house. What we thought would have been a sad farewell party; turned out to be a pleasantly surprising and memorable one because Naina recited a small poem — in English.
The mission, however, was finally accomplished when her school gave her a special trophy that year for a ‘speedy achievement’. Today, Naina is a senior lecturer in a university.
Lalit Raizada is a journalist based in India.
