Silent Worker

As a child, Sangeeta Gala was so enamoured by cinema that tears would well up in her eyes while watching movies. She would be moved by what she saw and her heart ached to be a part of this magnificent world. "I would tell people that I'd even be a mimicry artiste to be there. But I would be told that no one will bother with me because I am deaf," she recounts.

Today, Gala works as an associate director with filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali and freelances as a trainer to actors preparing to play hearing or speech-impaired characters. Her latest such project is Barfi!, where she helped Ranbir Kapoor get acquainted with the mannerisms of a speech-impaired.

Dressed in a brown T-shirt with denims, she casually takes in the sights of the coffee shop. She refuses to divulge her age, but reveals that her son, Pratik, is 22. Her appearance does not give away her age, which she attributes to her athletic career. Having stood fifth in long jump at the deaf Olympics in 1985, she continues to follow a fitness regimen.

Born into a Mumbai-based Gujarati family, Gala's disability was discovered when she was two years old. Her father thought she was "slow", but her mother, Shantaben Maganlal Barot, was adamant that a doctor be consulted. "She was from a village but ensured that I got the best education despite the family's dismal financial condition," recounts Gala, who graduated in psychology from Jai Hind College, Mumbai.

Gala's childhood dream, however, didn't come true until much later. After college, she pursued a career in athletics, followed by social work. It was at one such session in 1996 that Bhansali's assistant invited her to be a part of Khamoshi's training team. "At a meeting in Nana Patekar's house, the actor asked if we mind him smoking. I asked him if my opinion really mattered, and he laughed. The others were shocked at my frankness, but it endeared me to Nana, who chose me to train him," says Gala, whose son played the role of Patekar and Seema Biswas' son, Sam, in Khamoshi.

... contd.

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