Remember the movie Khamoshi starring Salman Khan and Manisha Koirala, and the stunning and powerful performances by Nana Patekar and Seema Biswas as a deaf-and-mute couple with undying love for each other? It brought tears to our eyes at that time. More recently, the movie Guzaarish wove a related tale. And in this case where reel life meets real life, the true story of another deaf-mute couple in Malda’s Madhyamkendua village in Bengal leaves us all similarly touched.
Jyotsna’s mother, Haramani Debi, a widowed woman spent sleepless nights worrying about the fate of her unwed deaf-mute daughter in case something happened to her. Both worked as domestic help to make ends meet.
Arun had been employed in a fish market and ran errands for local panchayat member, Narayan Das.
Fate intervened for them in the form of Pradip Sarkar, an elderly villager, who thought of introducing the two. “We all know about Jyotsna and how her mother remains worried,” Sarkar said. “Since Arun has no family of his own and he is as close to me as a brother, I stood by him and lent him my surname,” Das told TOI.
The youngsters, both in their late twenties, were married on December 11th and the expense was borne by the entire village. Post marriage, Arun lives with his wife and mother-in-law.
