Far from lip service

13.03.2017

Heena Khandelwal visits two cafes designed around the needs of their workforce — the hearing and speech impaired

While several cafes are hiring people with hearing and speech impairments, some cafes are designed keeping them in mind — from the ambience to special arrangements to help them communicate. Just like Mirchi and Mime in Mumbai, and Raipur’s Nukkad tea café, Delhi has Echoes and Hearken Café.

Situated next to Delhi University’s South Campus, Echoes has six hearing-and-speech-impaired employees, who do everything from greeting customers to taking orders. When customers walk in, one of them shows them to their table and explains, using sign language, how they can place their orders by pressing a switch that lights a bulb indicating their table number. Like all the employees at Echoes, Jatin Dhingra, 24, underwent training for two days and observed how the cafe functioned for a week before he started interacting with customers. “Communicating,” he explains in sign language, “was very difficult for me initially, especially during a rush. I had to seek the help of one of my colleagues. It is all fine now.”

It wasn’t easy for the founders either. “We all liked the idea instantly but were apprehensive about its execution. So we reached out to Noida Deaf Society and they helped us with recruitment,” says Sahil Gulati, one of the founders.

Similarly, Hearken Café that opened in November last year, has two hearing-impaired employees. Run by cousins Virat Suneja and Smriti Nagpal, the cafe in Shahpur Jat caters to artists and a working-class clientele. To keep the place vibrant and to motivate people, Hearken hosts a series of classes, including one every Tuesday on sign language, taken by its co-founder Nagpal, who is also a senior sign-language interpreter.

Inside the café, guests can be seen trying to use sign language. Whenever they get it wrong, Deepak Gupta, who works at Hearken, jumps to their rescue. “When people enter, they are apprehensive. I explain to them that they can order by writing or by showing the item, they understand. They are nice to us,” says the jolly 48-year-old, who worked at Echoes for 11 months before joining Hearken Café two months ago.