You can replace the gun-start with the flag-wave to incorporate the deaf. Good start, but the follow-up never occurs. “It’s tough to get them to merge with ‘normals,’” says Divya Gulati, chairman of the Round Table Chapter 19 who have been organizing the meet for the last 31 years. “They don’t stand out, but find it difficult to get into mainstream at the same time. It’s a peculiar situation,” he adds, their organisation’s own plan of picking a few talented deaf kids and planning their sports careers, never quite taking off, as a result.

Noise can get claustrophobic, but these children turn into silent spectators, watching plenty of lip-movement around, which for them translates as nil-none. “They go into a shell when they go to open meets. It’ll take dedicated effort to bring the best out of them on a sports ground, which besides computers appears to be the best level-field for deaf persons to pursue careers,” Gulati adds.

Deafness comes in no way of their physical progress, though they surely miss out on cheering which can contribute to 5-10 per cent improvement in performance.

Ambika’s teacher Vijjy informs how the talented girl is known to hide her hearing device every time she mixes with ‘normals’ because being marked out as deaf, leaves her embarrassed in crowds, and she doesn’t want to be sidelined again at athletics meets where she might win a race, but doesn’t add to her friends - a big matter for a 13-year-old.

A foul in long-jump: what would take two minutes for a `normal’ to comprehend, takes a deaf competitor triple the time to understand - that too with a demonstration, and some amount of repetition. Patient coaches who’d have the composure to deal with this delay, yet push their charges to go faster, higher than the regulars, are hard to find, say school teachers of the children assembled from over ten states here.

Few would understand slowness or learning disability better than Amole Gupte, writer of Taare Zameen Par, who was the chief guest at this meet here. Or maybe, many do, after watching the film and its re-runs. “I see this as a specialized zone - everyone here is a participant. Where is the ‘us’ who claim to understand ‘them’? I’d have expected the ‘newly-sensitised-by-Taare Zameen Par-Mumbai’ to come out here and fill the stands, and encourage these children. Are they here?” he demands to know.