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Making reading as good as seeing

A one-of-kind Braille-Tactile book, Tactabet will now enable visually impaired kids to read teaxt without the fear of it getting erased

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Tactabet’s English version costs Rs 1,800 and Hindi version is for Rs 1,000. It uses Polly Brallie Technology; extreme left: Upasana Makati, the magazine’s founder.
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It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind


The first impressions of the Tactabet bring to mind the above poem by John Godfrey Saxe, The Blind Men and the Elephant. Though he lived over a 130-years ago, this book might not have amused him too much.

From a distance, Tactabet looks like any other alphabet book. Launched on December 19, 2016 by White Print, a lifestyle magazine in Braille. The A, B, C book is now available in both Hindi and English versions. Priced at Rs 1,800 for the Hindi version and Rs 1,000 for the English version, it promises quality. "Illustrated by 35-year-old Neha Talesara, an alumnus of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, the book is printed by Panchari Mudrak in Delhi, the only ones who claim to be using Polly Braille Technology. The script is created using heat which causes raised dots on the paper. This ensures that the script remains permanent, unlike others which fade away after a couple of readings," says 27-year-old Upasana Makati, the magazine's founder. Although this is alien to the masses, a few visually challenged people along with an educationist give us a first-hand account of the book's practical use.

Vaibhav, a visually impaired BA graduate spent over 20 minutes with Tactabet and successfully read out the names of alphabets, but found it difficult to recognise the many shapes in the book. He says, "The letters are easy to understand, however, I had trouble understanding the shapes. For example, after moving my fingers around the diagram of the fish, and the giraffe, I could not understand what it was until I read the label in Braille below. The diagram seemed very forward in terms of styling, compared to what a normal fish or giraffe should look like; that was confusing."

According to 12-year-old Nayan Shelke, studying in the Class V of Victoria Memorial School for the Blind, Mumbai, "I had no thorough knowledge of Braille, so I too depended on the shape of the object, to tell what the object was and got a few guesses correct, with the rest leaving me confused. I think the book may work with some, but it depends on one's imagination and understanding of the object in the book. Again, the alphabets are easy to understand but the shape fails to put the image of the object in my mind."

Shalan Shivaji Chavan has been teaching the visually challenged for over 36 years at the Victoria Memorial School. She believes Tactabet is a useful mode of learning for the partially sighted, but a problem to those who are totally impaired. Those who are visually challenged follow the same curriculum as normal children, however, the way they learn and understand things are different. During the initial phases of learning, children are taught shapes and textures by giving them an apple in their hand, also different textured cloth and paper, so they may understand. Braille is a language made up of six dots and if learned well, any language can be understood with it. "The book is a good initiative, but there are loopholes. For example, if you move your finger over the diagram of an owl, elephant, lion, cat, bottle lid etc, it does not give you the image of the animal or object in your head.

The elephant has only two legs instead of four, and the owl is round instead of having a face and body. As they are not printed in their respective shapes, it can thoroughly confuse a visually impaired person, as they rely on touch to determine shapes and figures." She further explains that it is a good initiative but the cost of Tactabet may immediately make the book inaccessible to the masses.

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