World Courant
Dadkhai, Jammu and Kashmir, India – Dressed of their most interesting shalwar-kameez and with well-trimmed mustaches, a gaggle of males talk about the phrases of a dowry, whereas the ladies put together halwa with dried fruit and a pot of conventional salty Kashmiri tea, within the adjoining kitchen.
At Muhammad Shareef’s modest dwelling in Dadhkai, a small neighborhood excessive within the Himalayas, the 2 households have gathered to plan the upcoming marriage ceremony of Reshma Sharief, 19, and Mukhtar Ahmed, 22.
Muhammad Shareef, 40, the bride’s father, waits patiently as the lads proceed their conversations. They finally agree on a dowry of $1,200 in money, plus some gold jewellery. The older males murmur prayers as candy treats are introduced from the kitchen. The home’s rough-cut picket roof, mud ground and vibrant partitions, coloured in pink and inexperienced, hum with the sounds of a celebration.
However though the 2 households have adopted all the standard marriage guidelines, this marriage ceremony shall be removed from bizarre: each the bride and groom, like dozens of others of their village, are deaf and dumb.
Misra Begum and Muhammad Shareef, the bride’s mother and father, sit in entrance of the groom’s father, Ghulam Khan, after the marriage ceremony ends (Sharafat Ali/Al Jazeera)
The situation has spanned generations of Dadhkai for the reason that first case was recorded greater than a century in the past. When a marriage takes place, ideas inevitably flip to the day the brand new couple could have kids. Even when the mother and father usually are not deaf and dumb, there’s at all times the worry that their kids shall be.
“We confront this worry with unwavering religion and courageously push it again into the shadows,” stated Muhammad Hanief, the village chief attending the festivities on the Sharief family.
All through the celebration, the bride-to-be stays within the kitchen, adhering to the normal conservative values of her Gujjar ethnic group. Her fiancé takes care of the visitors and helps serve meals whereas relations provide their congratulations.
Alam Hussain, 63, is without doubt one of the oldest deaf and mute folks within the Dadkhai village neighborhood – and the one one in his household with the situation (Sharafat Ali/Al Jazeera)
Outdoors within the courtyard, villager Alam Hussain, an older man with a white beard, deep wrinkles and a skinny construct, quietly tends a herd of cattle. At 63 years previous, he is without doubt one of the oldest deaf-mute folks within the village, and the one one in his household with the situation.
“I am unable to bear in mind what number of deaf and dumb folks there have been after I was rising up; my reminiscence is betraying me in my previous age,” says Hussain, pointing an index determine to his head whereas shaking his different hand within the air, conveying his wrestle with reminiscence loss.
He communicates via an indication language interpreter: his neighbor, Shah Muhammad, who treats Hussein with respect and reverence, indicating the excessive esteem through which elders are held on this neighborhood.
However Hussain, who’s single, spends a lot of his time alone. The one work he finds is in the summertime, when he takes the cattle out to graze. Previously, he says, it was particularly difficult for deaf-mute villagers to discover a companion. Because the quantity of people that can not hear or converse has grown over time, the social panorama in Dadhkai has modified.
The place ‘love transcends language’: the silent village of Kashmir | Well being
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