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Submitted by PatientsEngage on 4 May 2016

Vijay Krishnamani, born with profound hearing loss in both ears, gives an interesting personal account on how following group conversations can get crazy despite having mastered the art of lip-reading.

As I grew up, learning how to listen and speak to a single person was something which I strived very hard to perfect considering that I was born with profound hearing loss in both ears. It is still an ongoing exercise since each new person I meet is always unique in terms of their lip-movement, dialogue delivery, facial language and sound levels. Some people speak with barely any lip movement; some with exaggerated lip movement; some speak in very low tones; some have very expressive faces and some peoples facial emotion is barely non-existent and so on.

As you can probably understand by now, listening to one person is a lot of work for a hearing impaired person though it is never apparent. Plus, eye contact, good lighting and seeing the person's full face is so important for me since it allows me to lip read nicely, hear properly and take hints from the facial language.

Now try multiplying this by 2 or 3 or 10... i.e., imagine a hearing impaired person sitting in a group and trying to understand the flow of conversation. It can be a bit crazy for me to be waving my head back and forth a hundred times during any group conversation trying to grab bits and pieces of the conversation (making up the rest of the conversation with educated guesses and some imagination). In fact, am quite unashamed of asking people 'what are you saying' or 'huh....?'  to the speaker. Sometimes they repeat themselves and at other times they are too deep in the flow of the conversation to stop and repeat. Sometimes when the lighting is poor, it created shadows on a person’s face making it very difficult to lip-read. Whatever information I can garner allows me to be able to be a part of the conversation to some extent, feel as part of the group and so on. It is a hell lot of work for me.

Handling Multi-lingual Conversations

When I was in school, it was sometimes very difficult for me to understand the flow of the conversation since my classmates were often in a tearing hurry - I know it was never done intentionally. But sometimes I did feel a bit let down with the thought that the same group of friends whom I was hanging around with for so long would often lapse into Hindi or speak too fast which in turn made me feel a bit left out. That was a foolish feeling to have but human emotion is one tricky thing. I would then keep myself occupied in my own mind, fake-laugh to pretend I had understood a funny conversation, and so on... Also, what compounded matters sometimes was the fact that I knew only English. I never could learn Hindi because of the difficulty involved in learning two languages as a hearing impaired person. So growing up in an English medium school in north India where people also spoke in Hindi was also a bit problematic sometimes. In the end, I would remind myself that no one does anything intentionally... They all are in a hurry, in their own worlds, can’t keep adjusting for others all the time and that would allow me to refrain from feeling like an object of pity. One thing I always hated was being treated or feeling like a person who needs help. Even now, as a person on the wrong side of his thirties, I have this determination to be completely self-sufficient and never allow anyone to tell me 'Let me do this for you'.

I have been part of the corporate world for close to 14 years now and am so surprised about the tendency of employees of 'global corporates' to speak in their regional dialect irrespective of whether some people in the group understood the language or not. In one company I worked for, everyone talked in Hindi, and that often made my lunch hours a very quiet affair. Even when working in a company in south India, I was often in group where virtually everyone spoke Tamil including my manager. So sometimes when I am sitting at lunch time and listening to them speak in Tamil/Hindi/ Kannada albeit unintentionally, all these childhood memories come flooding back and it is kind of déjà vu. When such things happen, I do try and understand by having a friend translate or give me an idea of the flow of conversation... But sometimes, I get tired of trying hard to understand a conversation when I want to just understand it without effort. At those times, I kind of disconnect myself from my immediate surroundings, bury myself in my thoughts or fiddle with my mobile and so on... Anything to keep my hyperactive brain occupied. However sometimes my sense of patience dips and despite every cell of my brain screaming at me not to do so, I immediately tell the group to try and speak in English.

Once in a while I sometimes think that when I am spending a lot of time with a particular set of people, I feel a bit entitled to the thought that they would be more considerate and adjust accordingly. But then again, I tell myself every time that it is not fair of me to feel entitled. They have their own comfort zones and I cannot expect the world to adjust to me. Plus, I know that whenever I pipe up thus, it makes them feel uncomfortable. I give myself a mental kick and tell myself not to repeat it in future. If I am able to understand the conversation, great... if I can't, still great. 

Most people who know me know that I am a social animal. I have been blessed to have gained a lot of great friends over the years, to have a wide social circle and be able to spend time together on weekends. Even then, virtually every 10 sentences of theirs, I make them repeat / translate what they said and they do it very sportingly - or I sometimes kind of take ownership of the conversation and kind of determine the dialogue. For example it’s far easier for me to take part in a conversation about movies as compared to a dialogue on JNU and Kanhaiya. Predictability and familiarity with the topic allows for an easier time in terms of understanding and guessing the flow of the conversation.

Empathy Makes A Difference

Last but not the least... Empathy makes a huge difference. In a world of increasingly complex and diverse group dynamics, the single constant factor that makes a difference is Empathy! If everyone spared a few moments to think about what would be the most effective way of making sure everyone is involved and feels like a member of the group, it would be such a beautiful thing. There are some people who understand what empathy is and some who don't. If just one person decides to be a person of empathy and decides to encourage everyone else to remember and practice it, it would lead to such an amazing group, an amazing culture and sense of togetherness...

Please remember... showing empathy is not the same as showing sympathy. No one wants sympathy. They just want you to be acknowledged as an equal and as a part of their surroundings in its truest form.

Empathy is the word to remember here...

Vijay Krishnamani is currently working as assistant consultant at TCS, Singapore and is coordinator and ex-student of Suniye, a Delhi based NGO that empowers hearing impaired children. You can also donate to Suniye.