Dadkhai, Jammu and Kashmir, India – Dressed of their best shalwar-kameez and sporting well-trimmed moustaches, a gaggle of males deliberate over the phrases of a dowry, as the ladies put together halwa with dried fruit and a pot of conventional, salty Kashmiri tea, within the adjoining kitchen.
Within the modest residence of Muhammad Sharief in Dadhkai, a tiny neighborhood nestled excessive within the Himalayan mountains, the 2 households have gathered to plan the upcoming marriage of Reshma Sharief, 19, and Mukhtar Ahmed, 22.
Muhammad Sharief, 40, the daddy of the bride, waits patiently as the lads proceed their discussions. They in the end agree upon a dowry of $1,200 in money, plus just a few gold ornaments. The elder males murmur prayers as candy treats are introduced out from the kitchen. The house’s rough-cut wood roof, mud ground and shiny partitions, colored in pink and inexperienced, hum with the sounds of celebration.
However whereas the 2 households have adopted all of the customary nuptial guidelines, this marriage shall be removed from atypical: Each the bride and groom, like dozens of others of their village, are deaf-mute.
The situation has spanned generations of Dadhkai for the reason that first case was recorded greater than a century in the past. At any time when a wedding takes place, ideas inevitably flip in the direction of the day the brand new couple has kids. Even when the dad and mom should not deaf-mute, there may be at all times a worry that their kids shall be.
“We confront this worry with unwavering religion, bravely pushing it again into the shadows,” says Muhammad Hanief, the village head attending the festivities on the Sharief family.
All through the celebration, the bride-to-be stays within the kitchen, adhering to the standard conservative values of her Gujjar ethnic group. Her fiance attends to the visitors, serving to to serve meals as relations provide their congratulations.
Exterior within the courtyard, villager Alam Hussain, an aged man with a white beard, deep wrinkles and a thin construct, quietly tends to a herd of cattle. At 63, he’s among the many oldest deaf-mute folks within the village, and the one one in his household with the situation.
“I don’t bear in mind what number of deaf-mute folks there have been throughout my childhood; reminiscence betrays me in my previous age,” Hussain says, pointing an index determine to his head whereas shaking his different hand within the air, conveying his battle with reminiscence loss.
He communicates by a sign-language interpreter: his neighbour, Shah Muhammad, who treats Hussain with respect and deference, pointing to the excessive esteem wherein elders on this neighborhood are held.
However Hussain, who’s single, spends a lot of his time alone. The one work he finds is in the summertime, when he takes cattle out to graze. Up to now, he says, it was significantly difficult for deaf-mute villagers to discover a associate. Because the variety of folks unable to listen to or communicate has grown through the years, the social panorama in Dadhkai has shifted.
