Kasol Basecamp - Sarpass trek... A batch of 60 people . Orientation program by the strict Field Director followed by self introduction time. While it was nice to listen to trekkers from different parts of India , different professions, age groups and languages, I saw a hand written note pass from hand to hand. This reminded me of chits being passed during school days ,kids getting caught by the teacher and being asked to run 3 rounds in the school ground as a punishment for their indicipline.If something similar happened here, running 3 rounds in the Himalayan basecamp would look like military punishment. As I feared and hoped may nobody get caught, the chit reached the hands of the Field Director.
It was a hand written note from Senior and Experienced trekkers of our batch Ajay Sharma and Sanjay Sharma. Both of them had hearing and speech impairment. Unable to speak and listen, hence they had briefly penned down their introduction and passed it on to the Field Director. We were surprised to know that they had completed many Himalayan treks. Since they liked sarpass trek a lot, this was their second time at sarpass. A typical example to portray that no handicap or impairment can stop us from achieving in life if we have the spirit to do so.
Though , I wanted to go and congratulate them for their courage and enthusiasm in life, since I did not know a way to communicate to them, I held back myself. Next morning, I saw a few co trekkers communicating to Ajay and Sanjay. I joined them to convey my congratulations to Ajay and Sanjay for their accomplishments.
What I thought would be just an exchange of smile , congrats , shake hands and say bye turned out to be hours and hours of conversation / Communication in the next 11 days of trek. There was silence yet there was sound.
Ajay and Sanjay sir enlightened us about Sign languages. There is American Sign Language (ASL) which is taught in schools even in India. It uses only 1 hand. There is also Indian Sign Language( British origin) this uses both hands.
There are signs for individual alphabets, words , phrases ,names of cities, and much more. We recollected seeing this on DD1 on the Sign language news on Sundays .
They taught us English alphabets A-Z in Indian Sign language.Now we could communicate with them. Playing Dumb Charades to enact movies came very handy now . They could follow most of our actions , when they couldn't follow something, we knew English alphabets and we would show the spelling of that particular word in Sign language. After cracking the word, they would burst out into laughter expressing how we struggled to express 1 simple word.
The communication between Ajay and Sanjay was lightening fast and it was impossible for us to understand. Unlike us splitting a word by it's spelling and expressing it, they knew many shortcuts n tricks. Sometimes , we started speaking amoungst ourselves in signed language consciously either to practice or sometimes unknowingly. Ajay and Sanjay would find it very funny to see us talk amoungst ourselves in signed language. Unlike the impression we generally have about speech impaired people, Ajay and Sanjay were very confident. Confident enough to communicate with us, teach us their language. They had a fun side to them. Funny and confident enough to laugh at a joke , laugh at others and laugh at themselves too.
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Every evening, I used to sing after the trek. One evening I suddenly realised that may be Ajay and Sanjay cannot hear me and may be they are getting bored. First time in my life I felt guilty for singing. I went and apologised to them if at all I bored them . With a witty humour Sanjay said , Thank God we couldn't hear you 😀. Before we stopped laughing , Sanjay added on a serious note, we cannot listen to your music but we feel your sincerity. I will treasure these words for ever.
At the end of trek Ajay and Sanjay conveyed me something which i interpreted as have a great flight ahead.( considering i was flying back to Bangalore) . They corrected me and conveyed " Have a great LIFE ahead"
This spoke a million words about their generosity. Though I can speak, I had never wished anyone till date a Great LIFE ahead. Copying the generosity of Ajay and Sanjay , from that day on, my birthday wishes always say
Have a great yr and life ahead 😊
