Saksham: Making the joys of life accessible to all

While film festivals like the International Film Festival of India give movie lovers a chance to experience the best of cinema from around the world, for a long time, visually impaired people have not been able to experience the joys of films. Saksham Trust has been steadily working to change this.
"We wish to see the joy, the happiness and the satisfaction on the faces of those who cannot watch the movie but can only hear it and feel it," says Rummi Seth, founding managing trustee, Saksham Trust.
Established in 2003 by Dipendra Manocha and Rummi with the sole purpose to empower the persons belonging to the marginalized section of the society through a variety of strategies,
Apart from making movies accessible for all (including blind), Saksham is working towards making mini models or replicas of all the important monuments in India which can be touched by the visually impaired while the history and geography would be described to them as they feel the miniature replica of that monument.
Trying to make films accessible to all, especially the blind, their work began with the much acclaimed film, Black with the recent Secret Superstar being their last work.
"In an inclusive society, all human beings, irrespective of their abilities and disabilities enjoy the right to live in and share the same space. They all have access to same infrastructural and educational facilities. In the same manner they all have right for recreation - which is also an important part of life, even for persons with disabilities," expressed Dipendra, who himself is visually impiared.
Hoping that India too joins hands with the world in showing positive spirit of inclusiveness in the societal mind set, Dipendra expressed its gratitude for allowing theatre access to the visually impaired and screening special shows of two movies -Hindi Medium and Secret Superstar with audio voiceovers at the ongoing IFFI 2017. In fact to make this possible, Saksham worked in close co-ordination with NFDC, IFFI, film producers and scriptwriters. "We are hoping that in the near future , visually impaired persons can walk into any movie show screened at IFFI and enjoy it in its completeness just like any normal person," stated Dipendra. The two films to be screened at IFFI have been audio described by Saksham under its ongoing project - Audio Described Movies for Blind People.
"Audio description gives a person who is blind or vision impaired a true sense of what is happening on screen, with a description of scenery, costumes, facial expression and body language, spoken between natural pauses in dialogue," explained Narendra Joshi, script writer, Trackone Communications, Delhi.
Explaining the technical difficulties faced during the voiceover and script writing, Narendra points out that there are three to five second gaps in between dialogues and music. He elaborates,
"We have to fill in these little gaps with description of what's happening on the screen at that moment. We also have to see that in apt and correct words, the story is being told to the visually impaired person who is listening to the audio voiceover during the movie. For that we do sessions with them and learn from them what they actually need. It's like retelling the whole story of the film, and that too in very short time."
Taha Haaziq, member secretary, Sanjay Centre for Special Education, Goa is among those who stand testimony to the goodwork that Saksham has done as he shared his experience at IFFI 2016, when the visually impaired persons came out of the theatre after watching the special shows of Bhag Milkha Bhag, Gandhi and Dhanak.
"The joy of actually being able to watch movie, just like any other person in the theatre was visible on their faces and reflected through their eyes. It was a great experience and we would like to have it again," he said.