High Spirits: How Mute and Deaf Girls are Earning Livelihood out of a Home in Satara

Aishwarya Patankar and Supriya Parande sit on the ground, busy crafting jewellery pieces, while a crowd of women from central Mumbai select and bargain for them at a stall in Nare Park. When asked the price of a piece, Supriya picks it up and points to the spot where the price is written, without saying anything or reacting much. It turns out later that both Aishwarya and Supriya are deaf and mute but have been earning a living for themselves, especially Patankar, who has been working for at least five years.

Set up at the recently concluded Mandeshi Mahotsav in Parel, Beauty Plus was one of many stalls offering a range of handmade jewellery – the majority of which are created by five deaf and mute young girls. While three of them remain in their native Satara, a district in Maharashtra, Patankar and Parande have travelled with Vidya Kaskar to Mumbai, hoping for good returns on their products.

In the quest to help girls with disability

It was ten years ago when Kaskar had to leave her regular business, which was running a pharmacy store. Taking some time out of the busy day, filled with women asking and bargaining for jewellery pieces, Kaskar, who is a pharmacy graduate, says, “Major brawls had erupted with the doctor we used to work with, which made me leave that business.” Wearing bead jewellery made by the girls she works with, Kaskar adds that she has always liked to design and create jewellery with her hands. Even when she used to sit at her pharmacy store, she would often design jewellery.

As Vidya Kaskar thought of turning her fondness for jewellery into a business idea, she also considered including the ones she saw almost every day: Aishwarya, who was her house help’s daughter. “My house help was always worried about what would happen to her daughter’s future, as she was mute and deaf. I spoke to my house help after her daughter completed school and told her she could join me if she wanted to work,” recounts Kaskar, 47, and mentions that she has been working with Aishwarya Patankar ever since. Kaskar started with crystal jewellery but later turned to fabrics and antique beads.

Although it was initially difficult for Kaskar to understand and communicate with Patankar, Kaskar says, looking at her, “Now, it has become very easy to communicate, as I understood some sign language, and even Patankar is smart enough to grasp what I am saying.” Over time, the coordination between Vidya Kaskar, Aishwarya Patankar, and the other girls has become so smooth that Patankar now understands intricate details, such as designing the products. “She does beautiful work now,” adds the founder of the brand.

The team size grew from Patankar when Vidya Kaskar asked her to invite friends to join the business. “Three friends came through her, and I trained all of them free of charge. Now, Patankar and the other girls make better designs than me,” chuckles Kaskar, then becomes serious instantly as she says that these girls are the sole breadwinners in their families. “Now, this business is not just mine; it's our (referring to the girls) business,” says Kaskar, who mostly sells from Satara or travels to different parts of Maharashtra, also dealing through messaging platforms like WhatsApp.

However, the jewellery is also exported to states like Gujarat, in addition to Maharashtra, and Vidya Kaskar counts affordability as one of the major reasons. “It is due to the pricing that people who come to buy one piece often end up taking more,” boasts Kaskar, as an elderly woman behind them takes away almost 20 pieces at once. “We generally travel around Maharashtra because these are traditional jewellery pieces mostly worn by the natives of Maharashtra,” Kaskar says, adding that Mumbai and Pune make up the largest number of customers.

The five girls, along with Kaskar, work out of her home. “We have been using the ground floor of the house for the unit,” she says. The day for the team usually involves working 5-6 hours. “As we get the raw materials from Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata, we try to innovate the designs on our own. We use real kauris and pearls and do not use plastic. The coating on the glass pearls doesn’t wear off,” explains Kaskar.

Women supporting women

Along with the girls, Kaskar's sister-in-law, who is present at the stall, also helps with the business. “I am blessed to have received very good support from the women of my family, including my mother-in-law and sisters,” she says. While she faced financial challenges at the beginning of the business, Kaskar says that she managed to navigate through them only with the help of her family. “I am aiming to build a team of 20-25 women because I have a dream of helping those who do not have a livelihood. I need to run their households too,” she adds, while both Aishwarya Patankar and Supriya Parande smile when asked to look at the camera.