Augmentative communication

Much much spectrum is a community of neurodivergent and disabled individuals advocating to make the world empathetic and inclusive. An inclusive storytelling studio founded in 2020, specialising in factuals, advertisements, and short films. Aalap Deboor, is the cofounder of Much much spectrum along with his wife and co-worker Aditi Gangrade.

Aalap’s passion and commitment to the cause shines through in this interview. He has also reflected on their family relationships. On how late diagnoses in the family has allowed them to feel at ease in their own space and as a family. His discerning insights make for great reading. Aditi was unable to attend the interview owing to a work-related emergency.

In conversion with Aalap Deboor, a conversation that would definitely strike a chord with many of us. 

 

How did you  both meet? And how is it working together as colleagues?

As a team, we met just before the lockdown in 2020. So, it was on a shoot where Aditi was the producer and I was the director. Instagram, India had commissioned us for a social campaign. And we travelled to about 20 colleges across the country, interviewing students about mental health, gender, sexuality, etc, etc. That's when both of us really connected and we discovered sort of our shared love for filmmaking. Both of us were not comfortable with small talk, so our conversations sort of mainly revolved around film ideas and shooting techniques. How to go about doing interviews, the different ways in which we can make nonfiction films more creative, etc. And that actually worked out much better for the both of us than going on conventional dates, of which I think, even now, we've only been on a couple so far, because most of our dates are pretty much just sitting and discussing film and that kind of stuff.
One evening, we were in Chennai, and we had just wrapped up a schedule. It was like a nice, beautiful evening, and we were shooting by a small lake. I walked up to her and said, Listen, I think I think I like you. And she said, yeah! And that was it. It was literally the beginning of our relationship. Quietly, we walked back to our van. And that's how it started for us. It's been three years since. And we are now co-workers. She's co-founder of much much media.
People discuss personal and professional lives separately, and how there must be a balance between the two. Yes, for us, there's a balance. We strive really hard to keep that balance, but there's no distinct boundary, so to speak, between work life and personal life. Because as entrepreneurs in this day and age, especially while overseeing a 25,000-strong community, we're pretty much always plugged in. We understand each other really well, right from one another's creative sensibilities, to our work ethos, and also more personal stuff, like sound or visual triggers, that might induce a shutdown. We're able to understand what the other person's going through. And we're able to hold space for them in a way that works out. So, it's an environment where we are constantly looking out for each other. And there's an inherent trust that our business and our relationships will always be front and centre in every decision we make.

 

Why entrepreneurship and what are the joys of an entrepreneur?

Entrepreneurship, you know, like so many things, is a vast spectrum. Also, you know, that means different things to different people. For some, it's running a unicorn with VC money, working hard to sort of show profits someday. And for some others, it's bootstrapping a venture to give birth to an idea that is close to their heart, but one that is also prioritizing its profits. For us, the challenges are varied. The lived experience of an entrepreneur is dynamic. Much like living with  neuro divergence. How it came about for us is because of many factors. The good things are that it offers a great amount of flexibility. It offers us creative leeway to pursue our special interests, our ideas. It also provides a great deal of independence and the ability to do things our own way. It makes us great at financial planning. And it also kind of emphasizes the importance of living in a way that is minimal, which we both strive for. So those are the good aspects of it. On the flip side, there's also a lot of uncertainty. It needs tremendous discipline; it needs lots of compromise. Also, knowing what you choose to do with your free time, if you have any left. I guess that is how entrepreneurship has panned out for us at least. 

I understand that your father was diagnosed late, and Aditi is now part of your family. How have things turned out for you in terms of family dynamics, extended family, and friends?

Late diagnosis, is this something that, for the longest time, we didn't even know sort of existed in this space? We have always looked at autism as a condition that's discovered early on, and you know, interventions happen. It's been viewed from a very narrow sort of lens. So obviously, when the prospect of a late diagnosis came upon us, in the beginning, it was a little intimidating. It's difficult to accept something you've never heard of before. But I think how, as a family, we have approached our collective diagnosis has been very empowering for all of us. It has taken us a lot of time. It has taken us about two years to assimilate all of this. This is typically how it works in the late diagnosis spaces. Self-diagnosis happens first, through all the reading and research, all the conversations one does before an official diagnosis takes place. That’s how it was for all of us. 
We have read up a lot on being a neurodiverse. Actively talking about your experiences, reading up and keeping yourself updated on other people's experiences. And that has been an integral part of accepting ourselves. To a large extent, it is also about unmasking, reducing the self-stigma that exists in a lot of people. We have put neuro divergence front and centre of our personalities, and we are continuously reminding each other and ourselves that we have specific requirements that were not apparent previously, but that have now to be priority in our daily lives.  
Just holding space for each other has also helped a lot. We are happy to give each other that space. My father really loves to work out. And he is 66. He goes to the gym, religiously. He has got injured in the past. When lifting heavy weights, you are more likely to sustain an injury. Earlier, we would advise, don't go to the gym, just chill, sit at home. But those two hours of exercising every day, we realized later on, are his ways to self- regulate. And, of course, it's important to tell him to take it slow, take it easy. But we don't tell him not to go to the gym at all anymore, because we realize that is his way to self-regulate. So there are these different ways in which all of us sort of hold space for each other.
When it comes to friends and extended family, I think everyone has been phenomenal because we also made it a point to educate them, in our own small ways, simultaneously. As we discover our stories, and also the stories of the people who are involved in this dialogue alongside us. As a big self-advocate community, we're engaged with lovely people from all around the world. Actually, a lot of them are from India. We are a 25,000 strong community. I think we're running one of the biggest pages globally on neuro divergence and mental health and disability. People come forward and share their lived experiences with us, which we translate in a manner that is accessible for our audience, who are primarily, India-US- UK based. Every time someone comes to us and says, this is what I don't understand, this is what my doubts are, we direct them to our page. We tell them, "Listen, whatever you want to know, our page has detailed information on everything.”
So, alongside discovering ourselves, we're also telling stories of other people. Showing how many of us go through these experiences, but never talk about them because we feel like we're the only ones going through those experiences. Just showcasing the sheer number of people that have experiences similar to ours makes it something that is not alien and makes it easy to talk about. And that really helps in making other people aware and making other people accept you for who you are.

You're challenging neuro normativity through your films. Can you elaborate on that?

There's actually a great quote by a very renowned filmmaker called Orson Welles. And the quote is, that a film is never excellent, unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. I love that quote. It's something that's stuck with me ever since I read it. I learned about Orson Welles back in my journalism days. A poet talks about the world, in a way that is funny or tragic or ironic. Basically, they bring a poignant sort of emotion to their craft. Something that stays with you. It is the aperture through which we look at our work as well. Our work should touch and connect with something deep inside you. So, it's not so much our work challenging status quo, as it is holding up a mirror to people, saying this is the way that a person feels, or this person has gone through something, a certain kind of experience, it is because we as a people, as a society have facilitated it in some manner or the other. If we have set up arbitrary standards, or templates for how we believe things and people need to be, then that's caused grief to a lot of people who have found themselves not fitting into those norms, whether it be neuro normativity, or hetero normativity, or anything similar of that kind. Our commitment through our work remains to showcase the full length and breadth of, I would say, the human lived experience, transcending everything that divides us, or templatized, us as us and to basically showcase how rich our experiences can be if we look beyond categories and labels. In fact, the first, this Instagram project about which I was telling you, that documentary was called unlabeled. It was basically an attempt to make society look beyond the standard labels for different things, and essentially accept people for who they really are.

Do you think generosity is actually an inherent trait of neurodivergent entrepreneurship? And where does it come from? Is it because you are actually more empathetic?

Like an inherent personality trait? I would say that I do. You know, broadly, I see nowadays that the system has begun to perpetuate a false belief that kindness, generosity and empathy in general are a signal of weakness. In my career, I have seen young people get mesmerised by seniors who were plain ruthless, making a show out of putting other people down at their workplace. I've seen that happen. And I've never honestly understood that. On the other hand, you know, it can be tricky. When it comes to doing business, I believe it should be a win -win for everyone involved. Sometimes we might tend to become a little bit too generous, because, yes, we are empathetic. And we truly believe in what we do. I believe it's important for neurodivergent entrepreneurs to realize that it is not necessary to always be generous, and yet business can be done with kindness and empathy. You don't always need to go out of your way. But you can still bring a touch of kindness and a touch of empathy to your craft to your art, whatever you're trying to do.

Any "Aha" moments. You have  the lived experience. You know this space very well but some things still take you by surprise? A moment of revelation...

There's a saying, which I really love, which I honestly and sincerely believe in. The more you know, the more you realize how little you actually know. It definitely has been a very humbling experience to explore this space over the past year and a half, We read books on it, we've watched interviews, we've done tons and tons of research spoken to so many people, and yet, every time you meet someone, you will literally start off from ground zero, it's literally like that because nowhere does the same hold more true than in this space, the space that we're currently exploring. We have aha moments literally every day. And I guess that's also one reason we are so excited about exploring this space about doing what we do. 
Documenting lived experiences is something that we absolutely love doing. It's also our bread and butter. It excites us no end, because with every new meeting, or interview, we take away something that we had previously had no idea about. Intersectionality is so essential to this entire conversation, this entire dialogue. People with varied intersectionalities come with very different experiences, have similar conditions, or have similar backgrounds. 
 Listening to them, seeing what they've gone through, assimilating it into a film and putting it out there, every time we even translate something from a conversation into a film, there's an aha moment on the edit Table saying, “Oh, my God, you know, this is something that we had never thought about when we were filming this”. Knowing everything I believe about neurodiversity is impossible. I don't believe anyone can achieve that because our experiences are so dynamic and so diverse. But using all of these experiences, using all of this as a means to facilitate inclusion and acceptance, is something that we are constantly working towards. The end goal is that, essentially, neurodiversity and these conversations are a means to get into a place where we can genuinely be more accepting, more tolerant, more inviting, more celebratory, in a sense.

How has your neurodiversity played a role in decision making and your risk-taking abilities?

For a long time, I was extremely risk averse. As an autistic individual, certainty is really one thing that grounds me, I love routine, I love predictability. Yes, I have to prepare for things beforehand. If I know I'm going to be doing something on Friday, I need to know about it by Monday. And I need those three days to sort of get in that space where I know that, okay, on Friday, I'm going to be doing this. So I need to expect this, and those things are essential to how I'm wired, and I'm very okay with those things now. But every once in a while, you know, it's also good to challenge your notions of what you think you know about yourself, because that is how growth happens. It needs to be done in a very structured, in a mindful kind of way, not arbitrarily, of course, because you know, that might not end up doing you much good. But beyond the point, it is my neuro divergence that tells me that risks will bring me anxiety, but it is the same neuro divergence that also tells me figuring out ways to work through this anxiety. Rather than avoiding situations altogether, it will help me discover sides to myself that I didn't even know existed. And this has happened, you know, as neurodivergent, a lot of us also tend to bottle up our instincts a lot because of self-stigma. So now, both Aditi and I make it a point to sort of let our, gut feeling or intuition sort of drive our decisions, which is also a manner of unmasking for us, trusting ourselves to know what's best for us, and what is best for the business that we want to run. I would just conclude by saying that it feels good to be taking up that space.

Thank you Aalap, for doing this interview.