Stop, girl, the mother says. The daughter looks at her but keeps riding the KTM to and fro along the Plamood road, in front of the National Association for the Blind (NAB) in Thiruvananthapuram. Sophia M. Joe does not seem to want to stop riding. She loves riding the Bullet, but today it is her brother Richard’s KTM she has handy. Both of them were born deaf, Sophia totally, and Richard, partially. A problem of the nerves, Dr Rajasekharan of the Kasturba Medical College had told the parents. Francis Joe, their redhead dad, has no lines of sorrow when he says that. At the NAB, he stands up to tell the parents not to cover their children under their Saris and to bring their talents out. For both his children, their disability has been their strength, he says.
Sophia and Richard
“A lot has been written about Sophia, about her being the first deaf woman to get a driving license in Kerala, about the beauty pageants she has gone for, the titles she has won. But what I want to talk about is a message to the society, to the people, and especially to the parents of disabled children. They are not unwanted, never treat them as secondary citizens, and never curse them,” he says. The two young talents will be the first disabled to attend a bike racing event, Francis adds as he watches son and daughter take turns to ride the bikes. “The training will happen in Coimbatore on 28th and 29th,” he says.
Richard, Goretti, Francis and Sophia
The family has come from their home in Eroor, Kochi, to attend the White Cane Day in Thiruvananthapuram that Sophia inaugurated. In her speech, Sophia lifted her palms up, asking the young blind persons to come up in life. She has that famous smile of hers as she talks, as people come to tap her shoulders and talk to her in sign language. “But we actually taught them to lip-read. They got to learn sign language only last year,” Sophia’s mother Goretti says. Both Sophia and Richard went to normal schools, starting with Bhavans in Kochi where she works as a teacher. “She started showing interest in sports very early. From third grade, she took part in shot put and discus throw, becoming the state level champion for the deaf for eight times. And going to national level thrice, becoming a gold winner once.”
They took Sophia to a sports school in Kothamangalam, to MA College of Engineering. In 2010, Sophia started showing interest in the fashion scene. She began walking the ramp under the guidance of fashion designer Dalu. She competed with normal girls in beauty pageants, winning titles like Miss Personality, Miss Congeniality, Miss Etiquette and Miss Talent. “But the problem was every time she reached the final six, there would be the Q and A round, and she couldn’t quickly respond to the questions asked. And then in 2013-14, she overcame that too and became title winner at a reality show called Supermodel in Amritha TV,” Goretti says.
The next year she became second runner-up in Miss Malayali Worldwide and began participating in several shows, turning the showstopper. In 2014 she also became the first runner up for Miss Deaf India. From there she was chosen to participate in Miss Deaf World in Prague. “I went with her and she became a frontliner,” the mother says. Through all this, Sophia has also been into creative work, glass painting and jewellery making. But then looking at her happily ride one of the tandem bicycles arranged for the White Cane Day by Amway India, it would appear Sophia’s biggest interest is to be on the road. Goretti shows on her phone the video of the sister riding and the brother in pillion through the busy streets of Thiruvananthapuram. Richard likes long rides in the night, often taking off to Kannur or Kozhikode. He is now a degree student at the National Institute of Speech and Hearing (NISH), doing his B.Sc. in computer science. Sophia has completed her degree in literature from St Xaviers College in Aluva. The family is going back to their place in Kochi, but then Richard will have a head start, rushing off for a solo ride in his KTM.
