How to interact with people with stammering

There is a scene in Su Su Sudhi Vathmeekam where the protagonist is trying to buy egg (Kozhimutta in Malayalam), but ends up in buying cauliflower. This scene is a very good representation of the problems faced by stammerers. The shopkeeper is in a hurry and asks him what he wants. He struggles and a lady standing near him laughs. He struggles again and the shopkeeper shows his impatience. This compounds his problems and it becomes almost impossible for him to say Kozhimutta. In the end the shopkeeper decides to help him by completing his word and asks him whether he is asking for cauliflower. He thinks enough is enough and decides to buy cauliflower!

If you are thinking what all need to be taken care of while interacting with a stammerer, this scene gives details of what all should not be done! Recently I read somewhere that a person, who is dumb, is usually treated with much dignity, but a less severe problem of stammering, in comparison with dumbness, is usually ridiculed. Most of the time the people who laugh at stammerers do not understand how much it affects the self esteem of the person. He is struggling to convey his thoughts and when he faces these situations he goes into a shell and dreads facing the world. Please give them the same respect that you give others.

Please be patient while interacting with a stammerer. Please listen to him and maintain normal eye contact. Do not allow your expressions, words or acts convey the message that you are becoming impatient. Let him take his own time, but never advise him to slow down or take a deep breath. All these will only aggravate the situation. If the situation becomes friendly, he also will become relaxed and speak better.

In some cases you might get a feeling that you should help the stammerer by completing his words or sentences. Please don’t do that. It will give him a feeling that he failed in conveying his ideas and will affect his confidence. Let him finish the sentence and if you couldn’t understand what he told, please ask him to repeat. It is much better than supplying words. In some cases, in order to escape from the situation, he might accept the word supplied by you, even if it was not what he meant! That is exactly what happened in this scene. The shopkeeper was impatient and he decidied to buy whatever he suggested.

Please treat stammering just like any other disability. Please give them some space. They will also become comfortable with the situations and lead a normal and dignified life.

Please click here to buy the DVD of the movie

Bangalore SHG meeting on 07-Mar-2010

This week, we were expecting a guest from Chennai, Chittibabu, who was in Bangalore on a short visit. I also received a message on the eve of the meeting from Aashish that he would be joining the meeting. He was a member of the Mumbai SHG and is now settled in Banaglore. Amith informed his unavailability the previous day.

This week, occupying the hut was like playing musical chair. When I reached the hut some people were sitting there and I sat on a chair very close to it. I was sure that they wouldn’t occupy it for a long time. As expected, they left the hut in 10 minutes and I occupied the hut and started my usual activity of reading the newspaper. By 10.40, I received the call from Chittibabu informing me that he was near the Library building. I tried to guide him to the hut but he couldn’t locate the hut. So in the end, I had to reluctantly leave the hut to pick him up. I was apprehensive about the fact that somebody else might occupy the hut if I left it. I brought him to the hut and we found to our dismay that the hut was occupied by a couple. Again we went to the chair near the hut and indulged in some casual discussions. By this time we were joined by Krishna. Very soon the couple left the hut and we occupied the hut.

By this time Aashish also joined us. We started the activities by getting to know the activities of Chennai SHG and Mumbai SHG from Chittibabu and Aashish respectively and by sharing the activities of Bangalore SHG. The only activity which was missing in Bangalore was doing some breathing exercises and meditation during the meeting as meetings were held in a public park.

Once this activity was over all of us spoke about ourselves, the family, the profession, the therapies undergone by us, the problems faced and the techniques used. It was followed by others asking questions about these. One incident narrated by Aashish is worth sharing. Once he went to a cable TV office to pay the bill and approached a girl sitting in the counter. Due to stammering, he could not speak properly and she began to laugh and told one of her colleagues to look at his stammering. He went out, practiced what he was supposed to tell and came back to her. She guided him to the proper counter and he paid the bill. After that he came to her and told her that a lot of people did whatever they could to see a smile on the face of a girl and that he was happy that his way of speaking brought smile to her face. When he was near the gate of the building, this girl came to him and apologized for her behavior. That was a very good way of conveying the message.

Krishna told he had difficulty in speaking to girls and he overcame it by deciding to talk only to them for some days! It again proves that if you did what was dreaded by you, you would overcome the fear.

We concluded the meeting and then went for a walk which has become a common practice of late in our group. We went to a vendor selling juice and Krishna bought Mango juice and we dispersed by 1 PM.

(Originally written on 8-Mar-2010 at http://t-tisa.blogspot.in/2010/03/bangalore-shg-meeting-on-07-mar-2010.html and http://stammer.in/menu-shg-activities/57-bengaluru-shg/322-bangalore-shg-meeting-on-07-mar-2010.html
The incident mentioned by Aashish is included in the movie Su Su Sudhi Vathmeekam) 

Acceptance and Su Su Sudhi Vathmeekam

Su Su Sudhi Vathmeekam is a feel good movie which will inspire anybody with stammering or for that matter any disability to come up in life. The key to do that is to accept your stammer/disability and to work on the communication skill or the affected activity. Though recent research shows that stammering has a neurological root, it is not such a big issue to affect the life of the person.

Unlike other disabilities this is most often laughed at. Most of the time this happens... during the childhood of the person. It is the emotional baggage that the person develops over a period of time that makes it a monster. This movie helps in showing this and let's hope the society will give space to the people with stammering.

When you accept yourself as a stammerer, it doesn't mean that he is moving into a shell. It means he has stopped fighting with that. He considers it as part of his life. He might even flaunt it! Take the case of a person who limps. If he doesn't accept his limp and tries to walk like a normal person, he won't be able to move ahead. If he walks with the limp he will move ahead. Similarly, if a stammerer tries to hide his stammering and tries to talk like a normal man, it will only increase the tension and affect his communication. If he allows himself to talk with a stammer, he will allow the monster to come out and will convey his points clearly. He might still stammer, but will not feel ashamed of it. It is okay to stammer! Just speak!

The movie conveys this message and is a must watch. Don't miss it.

Kudos to Ranjith Sankar and Abhayakumar Kanthi Bhavan for coming up with this idea. I will be a happier person if it was remade in Hindi and reached a wider audience.

Please click here to buy the DVD of the movie

(originally written on 29-Nov-2015 in facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sudheendran.avittathur
The previous day I had written my detailed views about the movie. It spoke about the history, the good points, its drawbacks and a summary. It seems the message of the movie was not noticed by many and a few people concentrated on the points which I mentioned as disappointments. This post was written to clarify my stand about the movie.)

Su Su Sudhi Vathmeekam - The Malayalam movie

Today (28-Nov-2015) I watched Su Su Sudhi Vathmeekam directed by my close friend Ranjith Sankar at Innovative multiplex, Marathahalli in Bangalore. Ranjith has made an honest attempt to bring an issue like stammering to the public domain though the movie. The newspaper and online media had shown me as the writer of the story. The titles of the movie told that it was based on my life. Let me clarify that my life was an inspiration for the movie but it is neither my biography nor a story written by me. The credit for the story and a major credit for the script should actually go to Abhayakumar Kanthi Bhavan ( he worked on the script along with Ranjith) who was a friend and former colleague of mine in NeST Information Technologies.

I am a stammerer and am a member of TISA (The Indian Stammering Association) which incidentally gets a mention in the movie too. TISA exhorts its members to accept themselves as stammerers and to remove the shame of stammering from their minds and to work on their communication skills. The concepts of voluntary stammering, bouncing etc are related to that which again are mentioned in the movie. In a bid to accept themselves as stammerers and to come out of their shell, TISA asked their members to write about their experiences about stammering and I also wrote mine. This happened on 21-Oct-2009. Those who want to read it, can access the write up 'ssstammering and my life' at TISA website here http://stammer.in/articles/38-cat-stuttering-related/222-ssstammering-and-my-life.html.

My relationship with Ranjith goes back to 2001 when I joined NeST Information Technologies. Both of us worked as quality engineers in that company. Then he was a renowned script writer of Tele serials and was an aspiring movie maker. We used to sit in the same cubicle and he used to tell that he would make a movie based on me. May be, he saw some eccentricities in me like stammering and sleeping in the trains. He told he would make the hero of his movie a stammerer. I didn’t agree to it as most of the movies treat stammerers as fools and making the hero a stammerer, in a movie, for no reason didn’t make any sense to me. Later Passenger happened which he told was based on my habit of sleeping in the train. I was happy that he didn’t make the hero a stammerer and that he acknowledged me. Later he made a mark as one of the pioneers of new generation movie and I am proud of him.

In the meantime, the movie, The Kings speech was released and I had a chat with him at that time. He asked me whether stammering was such a big issue. At that time I had moved out of NeST and was working in HCL in Bangalore. I told him it indeed was an issue and sent him the link of the write up which was mentioned earlier. He read it and told that he would have made a movie out of it had King’s Speech been not released. If he made a movie on it, people would blame him of copying King’s Speech. He shared the write up with Abhay who was a budding writer and the next day Abhay called me and told that he wanted to write a script based on the write up. King’s speech was based on stammering, but it didn’t mean that there could not be another story on stammering ! I agreed and asked him to go ahead. The only condition from my side was that the movie should deal with the subject of stammering and should give a ray of hope for those who stammer.

He discussed with me the troubles faced by a stammerer and he developed a story and script based on that. The story was about a person who was struggling in his life due to stammering. The struggles of the stammerer were based on my life. The other part in which his wedding gets cancelled, he gets married to the speech therapist who was responsible for that etc were his additions which were approved by me.

One day, he called me and told that he had a chat with Ranjith and that they decided to collaborate to make this. I was happy because I knew both of them and Ranjith is a person who knew me well. They worked together on the script. Ranjith used to call me very frequently to know more about stammering, the techniques like bouncing, TISA, SHG etc. He refined and modified whatever was initially written by Abhay though the storyline remained the same. Later when they decided to do the movie, Ranjith who was the producer, decided to give the credit of the story to me as it was the write up by me which was the initial spark for the movie. Abhay also agreed and my name appeared in the movie.

Ranjith has done a good job in refining and improving the script, writing the dialogues and directing and producing the movie along with Jayasurya. This is a feel good movie and has succeeded in spreading awareness about stammering. Thank you very much Abhay, Ranjith and Jayasurya. When the shooting of the movie was about to start in Bangalore, I met Jayasurya. He asked me some questions to know more about me and I was impressed. I was sure that he would do justice to the role and he didn’t disappoint me. Not only he but all the other actors of the movie also have done a great job. Kudos to all.

There were some rude shocks too in store for me. I was shocked to see the character shown as farting in some of the scenes like the one in which he faints and that of his engagement. I was never aware of it. I contacted Abhay and he told he had not written that. I contacted Ranjith and he told it was only in two scenes and that he also felt it was unnecessary when he saw it. I really could not understand what benefit it brought to the movie other than making him a joker. I never expected this which was really unnecessary and uncalled for. I am really unhappy that such a thing was shown in a movie in which my name was used. Let me tell all who read this that there is no relationship between stammering and farting and that it should have been avoided in the movie. If this was brought in to give some comic relief in an otherwise serious movie, I should tell that it diluted the subject and that it was more of a vulgarity. Please don’t be misled by these scenes.

The character of Vijay Babu was conceived as one who would give the protagonist the realisation that nobody is perfect. I am not sure whether the movie succeeded in that. Similarly the scenes related to SHG also didn’t succeed in conveying what it really is. The conductor of Mary Matha bus was more like a butcher. I don’t know whether there would be a bus conductor like that!
This movie succeeds in giving motivation to the people suffering from disabilities to come up in life. It asks them to accept the disability and do whatever is required to manage that. When it comes to stammering, accept yourself as a stammerer and work on your communication skill. Don’t fight with that but try to be comfortable with that. Don’t be ashamed of that. If possible, laugh at it. Yes, this movie succeeds in conveying these messages, though it disappointed me in some other areas which I mentioned above!

Please click here to buy the DVD of the movie

(originally written on 28-Nov-2015 in facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sudheendran.avittathur/posts/10208195919120087)