People who lose one or more abilities often become disabled and face harsh life realities, beginning with the challenge of finding a suitable match. Some of those who eventually find their soul mates become very possessive of each other and form exemplary couples reports Babra Wani.
For as long as Saba remembers, she has not conventionally talked to her mother. None of her family members has ever done that. “My mother is deaf,” Saba remarked, “She was a healthy woman but in her youth, she went deaf suddenly.” She has heard it from elders.
“One fine morning, when my mother was in class five, she went to take a shower,” Saba remembers her granny telling her. “After showering when she came back, she sat in the compound of my nanihaal house and decided to play the radio. But all of a sudden my mother was not hearing anything, the sound of the radio slowly faded in her ears. She raised the volume of the radio but to no avail. There was no voice around her.”
A mother in panic took her to seek medical help but to no avail. “My mama could never hear anything ever again. After my grandfather passed away there was nobody left to take care of my mother as everyone was busy with their own lives.”
As time passed, a resident of Srinagar, Saba’s mother reached the marriageable age and a match was found for her. Saba’s father has trouble walking. “So basically both of them are kind of disabled, my mother is unable to hear and my father has trouble walking.”
After their marriage, Saba’s mother started employing her knowledge of Urdu language to communicate with people around. “When my grandfather was alive, he tried teaching Urdu to my mother and since she only studied till class five, she already knew a bit of it. So whenever we have to convey anything to her or like talk to her, we write it for her.”
Another skill that the family has picked over the years now is lip-syncing. “We talk very slowly so that she reads our lips and understands what we are saying. She can understand me, my brother and my father, like all of us. But for strangers, she does not understand what they are saying.”
Saba laughed when she shared a secret about her mother. “My mother has learnt a trick to nod to everything anyone says as if she understands everything when in reality she does not get even a single word.”
An Unconventional Relationship
Post-marriage, Saba’s parents encountered a lot of issues in communicating with each other. “Before marriage, my mother was chilled, her family used to understand her but after she got married she faced a lot of issues in understanding my grandparents, my uncles and aunts here,” she said.
Adjusting to marital life also was difficult for Saba’s mother because, unlike her parents’ home, nobody in her in-laws used to convey their messages through writing.
“With passing times my father understood the technique to make my mother understand. For example, if we need to convey anything important or more relevant we write it to her,” Saba said, “There are a bunch of new words like inverter, and rice cooker, which are new to her since her childhood these things did not exist, so we jot these things down and make her read and that is how she understands.”
Saba’s mother used to do knitting and aari work. This became a crippling crisis as people who wanted her to work for them failed to make her understand what they want and how it must be done.
No Fighting
The conjugal tensions are normal but not in this case. “If there is something that sparks a fight or an argument, it does not last for long,” Saba said. “My mother cannot hear and hence she does not respond. My father keeps saying things and talking until his temper slows down. So there are no marital fights.”
Saba’s father now knows his wife and how to communicate with her. “My mother usually talks less. Some days she speaks in high-pitch but mostly she speaks very slowly.” Saba’s parents have been married for more than two decades now and are parents to two children, Saba and her brother. While in this case Saba also helps her parents to understand each other or others, in Altaf’s case the story is different.
A Deaf and Dumb Couple
Altaf a resident of Anantnag was forty when he got married. The reason behind his late marriage was his inability to talk properly. “Even though I can talk, I have trouble in it. My voice is not clear, my words are not clear and most of the time people who do not know me do not understand me,” Altaf said in his unclear words. “So obviously I had trouble finding a suitable match. My family tried a lot to find a bride for me.”
The quest to find a perfect bride for him landed Altaf and his family in a nearby village. A woman Saima in her mid-forties was waiting for a suitable match too.
Saima was also having trouble getting married because she has both hearing and speaking disabilities. After Altaf and Saima met, within three months they got married and have been married for more than six years now. They do not have any children and rely on each other for all their work and words.
Whenever Altaf talks, Saima keenly looks towards his lips, reading every word he says and promptly acts “She understands everything I say, every word of mine I can convey properly to her. While with others she has troubles so that is the reason that she is always smiling at everyone because she does not understand them,” Altaf said.
Saima keenly keeps following Altaf around as she thinks that he is the only one for her. “In our six years of marriage there has never been a day when she went to her parents’ home and stayed there for more than two days,” he said. “She is always coming back to me. And since we do not have children, we rely even more on each other.”
While most of the days Saima understands Altaf through reading him, there are days when he has to use signs and symbols to talk to his better half.
Just like Altaf and Saima, there is another childless couple whose love transcends beyond words and voices.
Ghulam Nabi Wani and his wife Haleema, have been married for more than three decades now. Both of them have hearing and speaking imparity.
Their neighbour Ghulam Rasool Dar became their voice in a video that went viral in 2021 on Facebook after they lost their home. The couple lived in a tin shed and that is when Dar stepped in and appealed to people through the media to help them.
The couple does not have any child and no other family member as well, just the two of them, Dar said.
“Both of them are disabled. Even though Wani understands a few lines of words and things, Haleema is not able to understand anything,” Dar said. “Most of the time they interact through sign languages and symbols both with each other and their neighbours.”
The couple lost their home after the floods of 2014.
“My youngest daughter used to go there and help them in using mobile phones,” Dar said. “Even though Wani understands a few spoken words or manages to utter some sound, most of the time it is through isharas that he interacts with both his wife and us. They have been married for a long time now and have developed the technique to understand each other.”
Wani can often be seen showing signs through his fingers and hands, with Haleema following closely to understand.
Another couple of similar story is from Kulgam, in South Kashmir. Both of them cannot speak and are mute. Initially, it was difficult for both of them to find a suitable match. “Then their families somehow connected and the two people ended up getting married.”
Soon they gave birth to two kids. “They usually talk in actions not in a developed manner but in whatever way they can. Or they point out things since both of them are illiterate and there are no facilities for the disabled people here in our village,” one of their children said. “They try their best to make us understand while we also try our best to understand them.”
A Beautiful Love Story
Sara, 65, is both deaf and dumb. After her husband’s death, she lives in a rented accommodation in Central Kashmir with her two daughters, both of whom got divorced.
When Sara was young, she was known for her beauty and thus her late husband fell in love with her and decided to marry her without caring much about her condition. She shares her love story through actions, which her daughters interpret.
“I was very beautiful when I was young. My hair was long and blonde, my cheeks were red and I always applied henna on my hands,” one of her daughters explained to her mother. “So, when Laalo (she calls her husband laalo fondly) saw me for the first time in my father’s pottery shop, it was love at first sight.”
Laalo and Sara’s love travelled beyond the nuances of language. “She always talked through her actions and tried pronouncing some words, but the language was always understood by our father. And their love story was very beautiful and strong,” one of Sara’s daughters said, “Our father was normal. He had no hearing or speaking issues.”
“She conveys everything through signs, it is not well-defined sign language since she is not fully versed in it, but it is enough to make people understand,” said Sara’s neighbour. “Her love story is very famous; her husband married her because she was very beautiful, even though she is still really pretty.”
About a decade ago bad luck started to befall Sara’s family when her husband passed away, later her house was demolished as well and both of her daughters returned divorced. “Currently four women are living there. Her only granddaughter has a bit of hearing and speech disability as well,” the neighbour said.
