Sound of silence

Jehan Daboo during a training session at the CCI

Despite hearing impairment, Jehaan Daboo stays oblivious of distractions and converts his weakness into strength

Eyes stalk the shuttle, glance at the opponent across the net, look at the raised hands and fist pumps at the side and are back to business. The memory runs like a silent movie in Mumbai shuttler Jehan Daboo's mind.

Jehan was the only Indian to participate in the World Deaf Youth Badminton Champion-ships in Bulgaria last month. And the teenager won a bronze staking claim to the throne of India's next hearing-impaired badminton star.

The 18-year-old suffers from a congenital bilateral profound sensory neural hearing impairment from early childhood and underwent cochlear implant surgery to be able to hear.

In the Deaf Championships, the use of hearing aids is obviously not permitted.

"All distractions are wiped away when I remove it (hearing aid). I'm more focused," Jehan does not mind playing in the isolation of pin-drop silence, one that can't be breached by even the loudest cheers or screams. "But I sleep very well (without the hearing aid). It's an added bonus," he says jokingly.

Jehan is now training tirelessly to qualify for the 8th Asia Pacific Deaf Games in Taoyuan, Taiwan, scheduled for October later this year. "Mondays to Fridays, I practise from 3pm to 6pm and have physical conditioning on Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 6 am. My target is to get a medal. I will be training very hard," a maturity, far beyond his age, flashed in his big youthful eyes.

A couple of days after his bronze heroics, Jehan took part in the 4th World Deaf Badminton Championships, also in Bulgaria, and finished fifth in the Team Championship and the men's doubles event.

Jehan started playing badminton at the age of 8 under coach Hufrish Nariman at the Tata Padukone Academy in CCI. "My parents wanted me to play a sport. I started off with football and tennis but it didn't work out. Then I started playing badminton," Jehan recalls.

Nariman, who is still his coach, has big dreams for her ward. "He has a good smash, good strokes and executes the drop very well. His footwork is also very good. But the competition is really tough. He has to build up more strength," she says about Jehan, who also represented India at the Summer Deaflympics in 2013, also in Bulgaria.

"My main focus is the Deaflympics. I want to win medals there," his features struggled to hide his excitement.

Despite his hectic training schedule, Jehan tries to manage his time and lead as normal a college life as his commitments allow.

"My college (HR College) has helped out a lot and they allow me to play," he says. Jehan is a 12th standard student and is keen on pursuing law in the future.

Jehan's parents have stood behind him as a rock. "We worked with him rigorously by doing Auditory Verbal Therapy (one on one therapy with the child parent and therapist) since the time he was fitted with hearing aids to enable him to learn to listen and speak by using whatever residual hearing he had. As language started becoming more complex, we found that Jehan was finding it difficult to keep up with the pace at which his peers were talking and picking it up.