In 1952, after two weeks of typhoid fever and mumps, 11-year-old Madan Vasishta awoke one night to discover that he could no longer hear. He was horrified because in India, the word "deaf" described someone who was not really human. This autobiography reveals how his boundless optimism enabled him to persist and prevail.

Deaf from illness at age 11 in 1952, Vasishta tells of his rise from herding cattle in a small village to becoming a photographer and teacher in Delhi, India, and later a student at Gallaudet in America.