A society for the deaf

By Roshan Peiris

Amaal Fazlee is a pretty twenty two year old, married to a freight forwarding husband. The couple has a two year old son.

Amaal was born totally deaf since her mother unfortunately had German measles in London which affected her baby's hearing nerves.

The daughter of Mr and Mrs S.F.Mansoor ,Amaal is a girl one admires. She has resisted circumstance and would not give in to tragic secrecy and an unkind fate.

As a baby, her uncle, her father's brother, a doctor found that Amaal did not respond to music as did her two elder sisters nor even to noise. It was then that tests showed that the pretty cuddly baby was born deaf. A distraught mother took her to the National Council for the Deaf once in Sri Lanka but not much could be done. ''I am talking of 20 years ago when there were no facilities,'' Mrs Mansoor said.

The only hope was lip reading which is better then sign language, said Mrs Mansoor. ''But I did not give up hope. I took Amaal to the United States and got a teacher who did only oral communication."

Back in London Amaal did lip reading, went to school and believe it or not, got through her London O'Levels with two distinctions in English and Human Biology.

Amaal in a moving article for the Lanka Monthly Digest says, "We are deaf not daft.'' She says "I felt lonely and isolated when people stare at me in silence."

Amaal says the problem with deafness is that people treat you as though you are stupid because outwardly they cannot see anything wrong with you.

Amaal was also given hearing aids. ''I am sorry to find that mothers don't like their children wearing hearing aids. They feel shy about exposing their children to this. But in such a situation one must clutch at every straw of hope,'' Mrs Mansoor says.

Amaal also says, "if people find us short of hearing they shout at us rather than try to say things in a clear normal voice.''

Amaal and her mother instead of wallowing in self pity want to help other deaf people. They want to form a society in Sri Lanka of deaf people who will meet socially at Amaal's home at 115 1/1, Havelock Road, Colombo 5.

Amaal says after all Sir Richard Attenborough of the Gandhi film fame, Marlee Matlin, Oscar winner and actress Stephanie Beacham all had hearing impediments but went on to scale great heights in their chosen fields.

''I am grateful to my mother who gave me all the encouragement and refused to give up on me. I hope our society will be able to inspire other mothers to be like my own. There is nothing to be ashamed of. There is always hope.'' Hope, Amaal feels has not gone away just because one happens to be deaf.

It is wonderful to know that people like Amaal and her mother, Mrs. S.F.Mansoor, have learned to be defiant of fate and in so doing help others in the same plight, with courage and motivation.

It behoves us all to salute the courage of such people, who do not indulge in maudlin sympathy but rise above their defect.

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