~ Power of Silence...~

 Both mother daughter duo sat in the aisle of local market engrossed in a cheeky smile. Being a festive season, they had put up a makeshift stall for the comfort of their seasoned customers, a PAYTM tagbox was all that was kept to receive payments along with a small box for change (if customers wanted to pay in cash).

The sell was all small festive items, from diyas to designer candles and other decorative items such as earthen lamps and handcrafted pastel stickers. The intriguing part being both mother-daughter duo was chatting and gesticulating in a particular way – ‘Sign language!’ – at first instance it didn’t make any sense to the causal onlooker as one is not interested in a small shop with inadequate flashy signs and bereft of any flashy marketing but on a closer look, one may see that the daughter seems to be deaf and dump and that in particular the mother was making a happy effort to communicate with her in same parlance – one could surely conclude that she must have learnt the language as a need of the hour!

Suddenly a female customer turns up to enquire about their sell and the daughter (about 30 years of age) welcomes her with her intriguing smile and a folded hand ‘Namaste’ – the gesture surely touched the customer and in ignorance she starts to ask for price of the items displayed – in nick of time her mother jumps in and steer’s the talk to her favour and tries to answer customer’s query – the daughter still showcasing her smiling face.

It was my turn to approach the makeshift shop and started to enquire about an item which probably was not displayed – the mother asked her daughter gesticulating in sign language, post which frantic search was initiated by the daughter to find the missing item. The search bore fruit and a pack of decorative candles were found to everyone’s satisfaction, the smile on daughter’s face was captivating.

The shopping soon turned quite interesting when the Aunty told me that all these items have been dedicated been made by her over two months’ time, she employees two likeminded staff – both deaf and dump, I asked “Aunty how all of them communicate, especially they have a white board and markers, whatever they cannot share while gestures, they communicate via writing and drawing!” – the parable, ‘Need of the hour produces a man’ proved on dotted line… She still sits on her makeshift shop in the evening with her mother , every time I pass through her small shop, she smiles and does greets me with a customary ‘Namaste!”, the best thing is that everytime I find more tempting items to be bought…. The next shopping spree is just round the corner with a certain hope and pray that one fine day I want to see her with her own permanent shop to sell her items, time has the only answer to this question….