How do you recognise a blood relative?

Letrsquos think about relatives How do you know those two people in the photo are really your parents You answer that yoursquove always called him papa and her mama But does that prove theyrsquore your parents You say there are photographs showing your mother with the new baby you so therersquos your proof The father is not visible having been behind the camera at the time but therersquos definitely a family photo of everyone together taken a week laterWait a moment though The photo only shows two adults holding you Can that be considered proof enough that you share a blood link with themFeeling cornered you demand to know what my point is anyway Chrissakes you know who your parents are For that matter you know your uncles aunts cousins nieces and nephews too All blood relatives You know it Everybody knows itNo further proof requiredIt was not till I began working with deaf Indian youth in 1997 to explore how being deaf made them sexually vulnerable that I started realising the limits of what your eyes can tell you about your relationships There are the obvious things you can tell by just looking at a person mdash gender height perhaps race age temperament Posture expression and clothing add more informationOne thing you canrsquot tell by looking at someone is whether theyrsquore related to you A blood relationship does not show up in any publicly visible way And no facial resemblance wonrsquot cut it Irsquove been told that I look like Mr Jeff Goldblum from certain angles and Mr Naseeruddin Shah from others no insult intended to either So much for resemblances and blood linksA blood relative has nothing to do with blood at all A DNA test might establish paternity murder or rape but it canrsquot prove that Bobrsquos your uncle A blood relative is defined simply as someone linked to you by birth rather than marriageThe conclusion is hard to avoid mdash you know someone is a blood relative because someone told you so Itrsquos hearsay and good faith Your eyes donrsquot tell you who your relatives are Your ears doSo what if you were born deaf What if you were born deaf in India Back in the late 1990s there was no nationally recognised and taught Indian Sign Language An Indian Sign Language with about 7000 words is only now being compiled but itrsquos decades away from being taughtSo how does a deaf child know who her relatives areShe has no idea what a blood relationship is Words like aunt uncle nephew brother sister and cousin mean nothing to her In her silent world is a house where several human beings live together Some are older and more authoritative and of them a male and a female in particular seem to be in charge They like to be called lsquomummyrsquo and lsquodaddyrsquoThe others perhaps three or four do things together and sleep on the same bed The deaf child is made to understand that they are somehow related to her To a deaf child family means a group of people who inhabit the same house with herOthers come and go A maid comes and cleans perhaps cooks She seems to live in a world of her own She never sits in the living room or has a cup of tea with the lady called mummyThen there is the fellow who drives the car And the one who takes out the garbage Also a couple of young lads and lasses who come by often to play They are called lsquocousinsrsquoI learned with a creeping sense of unease that a deaf child in India divides her world into three kinds of people mdash those who live together in the same house frequent visitors the driver the uncles cousins and infrequent visitorsSince I was exploring sexual risk I asked them about touching Where would they tolerate being touched and by whom In the family touching was not an issue An older person could touch a younger one in more places than others and a boy could touch a girl in more places Parents had the greatest freedom of touchFrequent visitors too had freedom of touch since they seemed welcome and likedSexual abuse of deaf children is uncounted unreported and largely undocumented but by my research extremely common The most common perpetrators are those the child has classified as lsquofrequent visitorsrsquo mdash the cousins the uncles the driversAnd how does a deaf child respond to itThree deaf girls were talking One gestured ldquoThat uncle man comes into my bed every night and touches me a lot Is that okayrdquoThe second girl signed mdash ldquoSo does minerdquoThe third one shrugged and signed ldquoIt must be normal in that case Nothing to worry aboutrdquoHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper