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karan

karan
arora , karnataka

Close-up of Karan Arora (35) half-smiling and peeping out between twin curtains made of fine gauze. He is clean-shaven and has black hair with a side parting. His face is tightly framed from cheek to cheek between the two curtains such that his ears are hidden. A broad, pink piping runs down the vertical edge of each curtain.
Side shot of Karan in a pista-green round-neck T-shirt and black shorts. He sits on a low wooden stool in a corner of a room with cream walls. In front of him there is a tilted rectangular wooden slab on top of a steel tripod. A sheet of paper is placed on the slab and Karan is painting a picture on it. He holds a paintbrush in his left hand and with his right hand he holds down the edge of the paper. There is another stool to his right on top of which there is a row of tubes of oil paints and a palette with colours mixed. The wall in front of him has posters framed in brown wood. The wall behind him has murals painted in brown, showing two bamboo shoots a few feet apart from each other.
Karan in pista-green T-shirt and black shorts is squatting in front of a row of potted plants with spear-shaped leaves. His right hand holds a white plastic spray can and his left hand with a cupped palm is outstretched towards one of the plants.
Karan in a vermillion T-shirt and black trousers is jogging towards us alongside a tall wall. The ground is paved with plain cement and there is a row of ornamental palms in black pots along the base of the wall.
Karan, his wife Ritu (32) and daughter Zaara (8) relax in the living room which has cream walls and a cream marble floor. Karan, wearing a dark turquoise T-shirt and beige trousers, sit cross-legged on the floor. To the right, Zaara sits cross-legged with crayons, colour pencils, paintbrushes and colouring books spread out on the floor. She wears a sky blue frock, spectacles with a black frame, and a headband across her black, shoulder-length hair. She is looking down into a spiral notebook and colouring a picture with a pink crayon in her left hand. Karan holding a blue crayon in his left hand is colouring the same picture. To his left, Ritu wearing a maroon V-necked three-fourth-sleeved kurta and tight black jeans sits on a wooden stool. Her left arm rests across her thighs and her right arm bent at the elbow is propping up her chin. She is looking down at the artwork in progress. Behind her there is a white porcelain planter containing a potted palm. On top of the brown wooden chest of drawers behind them is a smaller, similar planter with a sapling, next to a large beige teddy bear.
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“I have been practising speech, will continue to do so, and will never give up”

Mrs Kumkum Arora living in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh was mildly concerned when her one-year-old Karan did not respond to sound or attempt to speak. Delayed milestone, said the doctors she consulted. Her concern turned to panic, however, when he showed the same lack of response at the age of three.
 
She and her husband Rakesh Arora, a State Bank of India employee, took Karan to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi where he was diagnosed with severe hearing impairment and prescribed a hearing aid. Since his diagnosis was delayed his speech did not develop fully, and despite his speech therapy sessions at AIIMS he made painfully slow progress.
 
The Aroras began to worry about education for Karan. Things were going smoothly with their firstborn, Gazal, but when it came to Karan they had to decide: should they enrol him in a Deaf school where he would learn in Sign Language, or a regular school? They chose the latter – and a Hindi-medium one called Jagat Taran primary school, since a doctor advised them to focus on his learning the mother tongue. Under the guidance of an ENT doctor and a speech therapist, and with immense patience and effort, Kumkum enabled Karan to get promoted from UKG to Standard 1 – quite an achievement for a hearing impaired child in a mainstream school. He later got admission in Bhel Shiksha Niketan, an English-medium school, in 1992.
 
But words and language are not the only form of communication. When Karan was only four, Rakesh observed how he showed a special interest in drawing. When he was in second standard he won second prize for his painting. Encouraged and guided by his parents, he drew objects, animals, and scenes from nature. He took art classes to hone his skills and took up oil painting, gathering awards along the way.
 
When Karan was in Standard 10 the family moved to Mumbai, where he was exposed to several artists and art exhibitions. This fuelled his desire to become a professional artist. He was thrilled to be selected by the Sir JJ Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai where he completed his BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) course. JJ Institute allowed him to experiment with different art forms. “I thoroughly enjoyed my college and did a lot of painting, poster design, packaging, colour and composition, and advertisements,” he says. 
 
After Karan finished his Masters in Graphic Design from the reputed National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad his career path led him to the digital universe. Now 35 years old, Karan works for Dell Technologies in Bengaluru as a UI/UX (User Interface / User Experience) Designer. This is a designer who improves the overall experience a user has with a company’s products or services and the quality of interaction between user and software.

Karan does Web and Mobile design at work but his home displays evidence of his enduring love for traditional art mediums. He has done numerous watercolour paintings, has tried his hand at sand art, and is passionate about calligraphy and illustration. Last year he self-published a 40-page spiral-bound book, “Colouring and Doodling for Adults and Teens” (https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/1636403093/ref=ox\_sc\_saved\_image\_2?smid=A3B47YVAXI9QAQ&psc=1). He was also chosen for the 2022 Art For Inclusion Fellowship, an initiative of the India Inclusion Foundation.
 
Rakesh (now retired) and Kumkum live in Jhansi while their daughter Gazal Arora Trivedi works as a Digital Marketing Director in Melbourne. Karan now has his own family. His parents arranged his marriage with Ritu, who teaches in St. Xavier's School. “Ritu is a wonderful woman, and she had no concerns about marrying me, despite my disability,” says Karan. “We met face to face, and although I could not speak, she understood me completely.” They have an eight-year-old daughter, Zaara, who goes to Delhi Public School.
 
Karan says that Dell provides him with a conducive work environment and he has supportive colleagues. His endeavour is to make the web accessible for persons with disabilities.
 

Photos:

Vicky Roy

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