(Photo:Chhavi Sachdev)

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God knows it’s hard enough to meet someone nice, let alone someone special anywhere in the world. In India, “love marriages” are still rare. For the most part, marriages are still arranged, through someone you know or a marriage broker.

So for disable people, whose access to education, jobs, and transportation is already difficult, finding a partner is even more so.

In Mumbai, the best option is to turn to Prabha Panse, a former teacher of the hearing impaired. 80-year-old Panse runs the JeevanSathi Marriage Bureau that has been arranging matches for people with disabilities for over 20 years.

“After retirement, my daughter was getting married,” Panse said. “So I was looking for a good boy. One day I thought, these disabled people, what must they be doing? They must have some marriage bureau. So I made enquiries, and in all of Bombay there was no such marriage bureau. So one day I just put an ad in the Times of India and said “apangankarta marriage bureau” (all disabled people). And so many people came to me.”

Since 1989, Panse has received families with matrimonial prospects at her home-office on Mondays and Wednesdays. She charges a one-time registration fee of 500 rupees, (approximately $11). If the family is poor, she waives the fee.

Registering According to Disability

Prospective brides and grooms are classified and registered according to their disability. She has a dozen college-ruled notebooks filled out in Marathi, Hindi and sometimes English. The people are listed according to whether they’re physically handicapped, blind, deaf, or have a learning disability.

“First they have to register their name in this one, in their hand writing,” Panse said. “Either father mother or child can do it, then I require one photograph, that’s all. Then I show the other files. If a boy puts his name I show him girls’ files. Then deaf person – with deaf person, handicap in legs or hands, that is different file. Why? It’s better, no? They understand each other very well, very well.”

Panse said she’s set up between 400 and 500 marriages; the registers are mere aids, though. She said that matchmaking is a skill, or a feeling.

“I get some idea inside me,” Panse said. “I get intuition, because I come to know that this will be good match for him or her. But after that I don’t do anything, they go see each other with their parents and then they let me know.”

Grandmother Figure

Panse is, in a sense, a grandmother-figure scheming to marry off an entire a community of her single children.

36-year-old Shailesh Kulkarni is one of her clients. Shailesh was born with cerebral palsy and walks with two canes. He signed up with Panse in 2006 after having gone through many traditional matchmaking services.

“As my father was getting old, the thought of marriage came to our minds,” Kulkarni said. “So I started look out for girls but it was a very difficult thing. We had enrolled ourselves in various marriage bureaus but we were not getting a proper match because they were saying ‘you are walking with two sticks,’ and the other party was very hesitant to go forward. Overall they were judging.”

Panse, by contrast, is not judgmental at all. She has a great sense of who will work with whom; most of her clients are, after all, from lower to middle class homes and have traditional values. Looking at Shailesh’s background, lifestyle, and personality, she recommended his family get in touch with a girl who also has cerebral palsy. Vinita is two years older than Shailesh, and her speech is less clear but she can walk without a cane. They recently celebrated their second anniversary.

“In our Indian society people think of marriage and they think, ‘huh, he’s handicapped, how will he cope?’” Kulkarni said. “But Prabha Panse told me everything happens and companionship teaches you a lot of things.”

Panse shows no signs of slowing down, but she’s afraid of what will happen when she can’t carry on. There is no other marriage bureau for the disabled in the city. But for now, she tells me she loves her work. And she still remembers the first wedding she arranged.

“Aye, what to say? When the first marriage was done, she gave me a ring and I was so happy. She has one daughter, also, and she sent me the photos. Now I’m used to it! All the while happiness.”