Indian Sign Language (ISL) was the first language Nita Gopalakrishnan learnt. English was second. Born to deaf parents but being able to hear perfectly well herself shaped Nita’s formative years, and changed her perspective of the world, as she saw it through her parents’ eyes.
In 2020, the 42-year-old founded Yunikee — a Hyderabad-based organisation dedicated to helping persons with hearing disabilities in India — with her husband Chaithanya Kothapalli (44) and her colleague Rahul Jain (34).
“I never saw my parents as being different from other parents,” Nita shares. “To me, it was just a matter of my parents not being able to hear.”
Being a special educator, Nita realised the inaccessibility of resources that deaf children often faced, a realisation that later served as her driving force to co-found Yunikee.
For Chaithanya, an IT professional, it was watching his wife Nita’s work ethic while she taught deaf kids, which had a profound impact…