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vvslkm

vvslkm
prasad , telangana

VVSLKM Prasad (59), with cropped hair and moustache, wearing a white half-sleeved shirt and white trousers, is sitting in a wooden chair in a corner of a room. He is facing a small concrete ledge shaped like a quadrant built into the two corner walls. Five framed photos are placed on the ledge, leaning against the walls. One is a portrait of his son Harshavardhan (31) and daughter Amala (25). Another is of him and his wife Bharathi (49). There are two smaller photos of deities to the side. He is looking directly at the painted portrait in front of him with hands folded in prayer. It shows a grey-haired Helen Keller, the legendary deaf-blind disability rights activist, against a green background. She wears a black dress and a pearl necklace.
Prasad sits in a room with light pink walls, facing the camera. He sits in a yellow plastic chair behind a metal table covered with a tablecloth in a brown and white floral pattern. Bharathi and Harshavardhan sit on either side of him. They are among a group of people sitting in a circle. Prasad is signing and everyone else has raised their hands in the air with palms spread out in the Deaf Sign which means ‘applause’. A rectangular banner is nailed onto the wall behind Prasad. It has the words “Development Society for the Deaf” in large red capital letters against a yellow background. Below this is written in smaller blue capital letters, “Telangana State Committee”. On the left edge of the banner running from top to bottom are large blue capital letters D S D.
Prasad dressed in all-white shirt and trousers is standing in the narrow upper balcony of his house. His right hand is resting on the parapet ledge and left hand is in his trouser pocket. A red mobile phone and a few pens peep out of his shirt pocket. In the background are buildings with single and multiple floors. To the left, the leafy upper branches of a tree brush against the parapet. To the right, many washed clothes including underwear are hung out to dry, fixed with blue and grey plastic pegs to two parallel clothes lines.
Side shot of Prasad sitting in a black computer-chair in front of a desktop placed on a grey table-top. He is looking at the screen with both hands placed on the keyboard. There is a purple-coloured mouse to the right of the keyboard. A clock and the framed photo of a white-haired old man hang on the wall behind him.
Prasad poses with his family on a wooden cot with a mattress covered with a black-and-white checked sheet. Amala sits to the extreme left with one leg hanging down and the other folded. Sitting crosslegged next to her on the bed are Bharathi and Prasad. Harshavardhan sits on a wooden chair to the right of the cot. All of them are smiling broadly. Amala wears a maroon churidhar and a cream, three-fourth sleeve, round-neck kurta with small maroon and grey designs on it. Her plaited hair hangs down her right shoulder. Bharathi wears a light brown blouse and a sari in a geometrical pattern of maroon and orange with a flesh-coloured border. Prasad is in his all-white shirt and pants. Harshavardhan, who sports a beard and moustache, wears a black shirt and blue jeans.
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“I want to establish a degree college for the Deaf in Telangana”

We often hear of alumni of prestigious institutions fundraising or making donations towards their alma mater. Rarely do we see a former student of a government school contributing towards its improvement.
 
Vallabhaneni Venkata Sathya Lakshmi Krishna Murali (VVSLKM) Prasad (59), who founded the Development Society for the Deaf (DSD), raised funds through his NGO to donate 16 acres for the expansion and improved facilities of his old school, the Government School for Deaf and Dumb in Malakpet, Hyderabad.
 
Prasad was one of two sons born to a farmer couple in Mahabubnagar in former Andhra Pradesh. They cultivated paddy, cotton, fruits and vegetables. Communicating to us via his son, he gave us to understand that he was not born deaf. When he was three years old he had high fever and his parents took him to a private hospital in Kurnool. He was apparently given an injection that impacted his nervous system and robbed him of his hearing. His parents took him to hospitals in Vijayawada and even Mumbai in the hope of a cure. Finally they accepted reality and started him on speech therapy.
 
It was when he turned nine that his parents came to know of a school for the deaf-mute in Hyderabad. They admitted him as a boarder and he started his education, completing tenth grade and going on to pass the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) Turner course with flying colours. This is a course in mechanical engineering that trains people for the job of a turner, one who manufactures and assembles metal components to build tools and machinery.
 
After completed the ITI course he got job offers from public sector companies and banks but he rejected them in favour of the lottery business. He got the licence for state level distribution of lottery tickets and ran the business for two years but then the government changed, and so did the rule, and lottery was banned in the state.
 
Prasad had become increasingly conscious of the limited opportunities for persons with disabilities (PwDs) and decided to work for their cause. In 1987 he founded DSD and ever since he has been struggling to improve the lives of PwDs. It won the Telangana state award for best organisation and Prasad, for best social worker.
 
In the 1980s, the monthly disability allowance offered by the state used to be a paltry ₹200. DSD spent years fighting in court to get it increased — to ₹500 in 2010 and ₹1500 in 2014 and then to ₹3000 in 2019. Not content, Prasad is pushing for ₹5,000. Since 2018-19 he has been demanding free 3G and 4G mobile phones for the Deaf since video has become a vital aid for them today. He has been pressing for unique ID cards (UDID) to be swiftly issued and increased reservation in government jobs for PwDs. There is no degree college for the Deaf and he wants to establish one, with government aid.
 
Sport has been a constant in Prasad’s life. Over the years he won 10 gold medals in tournaments held by the All India Sports Council of the Deaf. He was a high-jumper and national level football and leather ball cricket player. DSD and the Telangana State Cricket Association of the Deaf (of which he is President) jointly conducted regional and national leather ball cricket tournaments. India won the international-level (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh) tournament in 2018.
 
DSD pitched in during the pandemic to distribute food and clothes and help PwDs as best they could. They also formed a Matrimonial Status Society for the Deaf in 2015. How did Prasad himself enter the bonds of matrimony? His family started looking for a bride in 1989. He saw Bharathi’s photo and said, “This is the girl I want to marry.” But she was only 17! He waited till she turned 18 and they got married on 31 January 1990.
 
Bharathi (49) is DSD’s general secretary and works alongside him. Their children Amala (25) and Harshavardhan (31) learnt Sign Language while growing up and as a result, the whole family is able to communicate in Sign.


Photos:

Vicky Roy

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