A Truly 'Speechless' Affair, Indeed!

It was a busy morning at the ICSA centre in the city on Saturday, which saw tensed young men and women communicating through gestures in a packed auditorium.

CHENNAI:  It was a busy morning at the ICSA centre in the city on Saturday, which saw tensed young men and women communicating through gestures in a packed auditorium.

The occasion was a meeting of prospective brides and grooms from speech impaired community, organised by Aum Divine Consciousness, a spiritual organisation.

“While there are a host of matrimonial websites and agencies today, hardly any help is available for people of the differently-abled community, especially those with speech impairment. That’s when we thought of this initiative,” said Mohana Krishnaswamy, the founder of Aum Divine Consciousness.

After gathering details of the parties present, the event began with an introductory session, where each participant’s qualification and demands were interpreted both in sign language and normal speech.

The participants comprised people from all walks of life — from casual labourers to those working in IT companies and government offices.

Unlike other matrimonial websites that have foot length page demands, these people had fewer demands and were open to matrimonial alliances from any caste.  This was followed by a round-table conference with families of those interested interacting with each other. Interestingly, the number of prospective grooms was almost double than that of the brides.

The organisers pointed out that this was just a first step towards bringing together couples from the speech-impaired community to find partners.

“This is the first step and we are done with the process of data collection. Further, this compilation would be sent to the prospective brides and grooms who are interested and we will expand this as and when more interested persons come in,” said one of the volunteers.

The long-term objective is to have a matrimonial website for the speech-impaired. We are looking at this as a free service, said N Vinoth, lecturer and sign language interpreter, who is involved with the project.

Those interested in enrolling may contact omdivineconsciousness@gmail.com.