Call it my sickness or obsession, but a day for me isn't complete without reading a bunch of about 20 newspapers. Today, one of them, published from Bhutan, caught my eye with a headline: Deaf Nation puts Bhutan in it's travel map. Curious, I was soon digging into it. Turns out, Deaf Nation is a community of deaf people. Founded in 2003, deafnation.com - the website of the community calls itself "a trusted one-stop center for deaf and hard of hearing news." The site, among others, has travel videos shot on different locations across the world - all in the sign language.
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| Its both sad and stupid that for over ten hundred thousand strong deaf community, not a single TV channels has an iota of space. Photo courtesy: Loghi Dei Progetti |
As I toured the site, I was suddenly reminded of our good old state broadcaster Door Darshan (DD); every Sunday, on DD there used to be a half-an hour news show for people with hearing problems. As a kid, I always found it very amusing, to hear a newscaster reading the headlines of the week and then to watch another newscaster translating the same in hand movements that seemed both strange and mysterious.
I have not watched DD channel on a Sunday for ages and don't know if the show still continues. But what I know, and realized as a shock, that out of the 200+ Satellite and cable channels that we have today, not a single one has a single show for deaf people!
