The summer heat in Baroda is intolerable. A sudden power cut prevents even the hot air from being circulated by the solitary fan in each classroom. But there seems to be no trace of discomfort on the lively features of the petite woman clad in a crisp indigo-blue patterned handloom sari. Tiny rivulets of perspiration dot her brow, but the children she is speaking to don’t notice them; they are concentrating hard on her words of wisdom. Nisha Grover enunciates each word and demonstrates what she is teaching with a puppet. She is blissfully unaware of the contortions her face assumes as she moves her jaw muscles to help the kids recognise how the sound of a word would appear.

These children hailing from poor families are hearing-impaired. Grover is intent on teaching them how to overcome their disability and become self-reliant through a combination of lip-reading, speaking and sign language. “We work on communication skills and follow what we call the total communication mode, so the children are speaking, lip-reading and learning to sign. Teaching the deaf elicits a lot of strong opinions. Some people say don’t teach through signs, some advocate teaching an oral language through signs,” reveals Grover.

Over the years, she has learnt to follow what best serves the individual child. “If you’re integrating them, you have to give them oral language skills,” she elaborates. “We start with that and we also use written communication. Some of the children are completely deaf or they come from families who can’t really support the programme. Many parents are not literate, so it becomes difficult for them to even read a note we have sent. I really think illiteracy is a major disability.”

Grover has been training and working in this field for over three decades. After graduating from Calcutta University, she obtained a diploma from the Education Audiology and Research Centre (EAR) in Mumbai to work with deaf children and then taught at the Oral School for Deaf Children in Kolkata from 1974 to 1978. “I just wandered into this field, but learnt a lot working with kids. At first I wasn’t clear about what deaf education is but when I trained, I found it interesting. It is all about the language. We keep abreast of the latest research on the application devices we work with and learn how language is acquired, so it’s quite an exciting area.”

Born in a rented shed in 1988, the Akshar Centre for Hearing Impaired Children has grown by leaps and bounds. “We began without any infrastructure, money or teachers. Some of my friends pitched in at that point,” she recalls gratefully. The trust was registered in 1989. For the next two years Grover didn’t charge any fees. “We found that not charging fees meant there was a lot of absenteeism, so we said anybody who can pay Rs 100 a month should pay,” she explains. That system carries on till today and Akshar somehow finds the goodwill and funding to sustain itself. When confusion about ownership necessitated that they move out of the shed, Grover approached the army. “I went to the Commandant of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (EME) and said he will have to help us as I had 30 kids and no money. He was kind and helped us become part of the army welfare organisation. They gave us a bungalow with eight rooms. We were there from 1991 till 1997.”

While that space worked well, they outgrew it when the numbers eventually increased. That is when Grover approached the municipal school authority, who willingly offered them part of the premises under its purview. A couple of years ago, the rapidly-growing centre got three additional rooms. While they don’t pay rent, they have to foot the bills for electricity and other incidentals. “It’s stressful,” laments Grover, “because you don’t know whether you will have the space the next year or not.” The cloud that hangs overhead has a silver lining, though, for the government has granted Akshar land on the outskirts of the city. Husband and architect Karan Grover (who is also the managing trustee) has lost no time in designing the centre. Thanks to zealous volunteers and generous well-wishers, they have also managed to collect enough money to start building the centre.

Meanwhile, the children are blossoming under the nurturing care of the trust. The Early Intervention Programme, supported by the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation for the past two years, starts the training process as soon as diagnosis is in place. “Initially, it’s a one-to-one session with the child, parents and the teacher. We show parents how to work with the child, develop speech and use hearing aids.” Grover started this programme as soon as she began work. “Over the years, Akshar has integrated around 42 children in schools. Initially, we give them skills and then gradually push them into a regular school. Some of them get absorbed into the system.”