Actions do speak louder than words

In the summer of 2012, on her visit to a city-based NGO, Smriti Nagpal was approached by someone who was busy doing what was referred to as ‘manual labour’, in the same organisation.

“The person came towards me and in sign language asked me if I could help him. Through him I found out that he had an art degree and yet he was forced to have a job which didn’t even require the skills which he had acquired during education. The reason being that he was deaf and mute,” said 24-year old Nagpal.

Months after this meeting, Nagpal established, atulyakala, an organisation which aims to “plug the gap and find a common platform to bring creative professionals from deaf and hearing-abled communities together”.

Co-founded by Harshit Vishwakarma, atulyakala, which now has six full-time members, recently launched the ‘Heart Project’, another initiative in the form of an exhibition of artwork produced by teams of two people - a deaf and a hearing-abled artist. “It’s just a little step, which we all need to take and the world will have no barriers, no disability. I am on the way to embrace deafness, to embrace lives and make sure they get what they deserve,” Nagpal added.

Born and brought up in Delhi, Nagpal did her graduation from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and is now, in her spare time, studying business management.

“Both my elder brother and sister are deaf and mute, so interaction with the community for me started at an early age. When I was 16, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) asked me to interpret on the occasion of the World Disability Day and that was the first time I was professionally involved in interpretation,” Nagpal told Metrolife.

She later worked for Doordarshan as an interpreter and also accompanied the Indian team at the ‘Abilympics’ held in South Korea. The meeting with the deaf artist came after her brief stints with NAD and other organisations. Two years after the establishment of atulyakala, Nagpal sees what she does as a cause.

“We are not a non-profit organisation, we are a social enterprise and aim to build lives and assist the deaf and mute community to claim dignity, which is their right. They have the skills like everyone else so why should they suffer? Our activities focus on making the community self-reliant and live as equals,” Nagpal said. This is where her business education comes to play.

The organisation has a revenue model in the form of stores which sell products or artworks made by the artists themselves. Her model seems to be working and has garnered attention of many deaf and mute people. Among them is Pintoo Kumar.

Born in Kolkata, Kumar spent most of his life in an orphanage before finally coming to Delhi to work and follow his dream of becoming a photographer. But fate had other plans for Kumar. Some years back, all of his life earnings disappeared when he became a victim of cyber fraud. He was forced to sell his camera to survive. Sometime later, he came to know about Nagpal and approached her. He now works with her as a photographer.  

“It’s not so often when you see a deaf person pursuing photography. But we are trying to break this stereotype. I want to use my camera as a tool to express myself,” said Nagpal interpreting Kumar. “I want to capture lives of deaf people and show it to the world. We are same, just like you,” Kumar added.

Among other things that atulyakala does is spread awareness about the disability through various events which they hope will help to build a bridge and diminish the
gap between deaf and hearing communities.

“We have plans to launch our new product line in the coming month which will be niche and something everyone would be happy to have. By the end of this year, we are expecting to have more than 100 deaf artists with us and more stores of atulyakala across India,” says Nagpal. She adds, “Sign language is a very beautiful language, I think it’s time we start signing”.