Run by a 29-year-old Oxford MBA and staffed almost entirely by deaf people, Mumbai-based ‘Mirakle Couriers’ is a unique company whose internal operations we were long interested in. So we got PaGaLGuY’s Lajwanti D’souza to spend a day at Mirakle Couriers and accompany a hearing-impaired delivery boy through the concrete jungle of Mumbai’s commercial Fort area and witness for herself this miracle of social entrepreneurship.

The Mirakle Couriers office at Churchgate, Mumbai with its huge stacks of parcels and loads of paper, employees busy handing over documents and packages to each other, looks like any other busy courier delivery service outlet. The only difference is that Mirakle Couriers operates in almost a deadly silence. With all its employees deaf and the CEO and founder Dhruv Lakra conversing with them in sign language, the only sound is that of paper crunching and packages being thumped on the floor. Dhruv, an MBA from Said Business School, Oxford University has kept upright the lessons he learnt on social entrepreneurship at Oxford and put them to practice by starting this unusual company.

For Lakra, while there are 60,000 deaf people in India, the disability has been the least focused one. “That’s because you don’t know a person is deaf by simply looking at him,” he says. Unlike blind or physically challenged people, whose disabilities are more visible. It was a chance witnessing of local bus conductor argue with a deaf commuter that spurred Dhruv’s eureka moment to start a company with deaf people.

It did not take much time before Dhruv moved out of a zooming corporate career with a premium investment bank to complete his MBA at Oxford and start this unique venture in 2008. With no precedent of this kind anywhere, he had to start from scratch, which meant liaising with NGOs and visiting sites where he was likely to meet deaf people. “Deaf people are usually well-connected so by word of mouth, I connected to a lot of them,” said Lakra.

Today this 29-year-old operates a company employing 55 deaf people. Deaf men do the package delivery, while deaf women work on package sorting. For Lakra, it is like running any other company, only that at every corner, he has to bear the sensitivities of his employees in mind.

Recruiting a deaf workforce

This has always been the most difficult part for Lakra. Recruitment companies, job websites and HR stalwarts are of no use for him. Lakra started the outfit by scouring every place he was told he would find deaf people in Mumbai, from street corners to NGOs and following leads given by people in the know-how. After Lakra got his initial set of people, the later recruits approached him on their own and thus started the young man’s unusual tryst with social entrepreneurship.

After meeting people, Lakra conducts a round of interviews with his prospective employees. It’s important for Lakra, as soon as he is handed over a resume, to do a thorough background check on the candidate’s family background and the places he has worked at before. “The employee’s background should be good and also his past employers should have a good opinion about him. It’s very important for me in this profession,” said Lakra. Once the background is checked into, an interview follows. Here Lakra gives good attention to the candidate’s appearance and confidence his personality exudes. It’s important for Mirakle Courier employees to feel good and automatically like looking good for the job. A check is made whether the prospective employee likes to display a neat and clean appearance. Once the candidate passes this stage, he is recruited. The same goes for the female deaf employees who work in the office. Many come from troubled backgrounds and this company has come like a whiff of fresh air for them, as many have earlier been known to forcibly take up jobs at artificial jewellery-making and other such small units.

When PaGaLGuY.com spoke to Lakra, two of his employees had left the company all of a sudden. For both, their families did not want them to work as courier boys. They would rather have them sit at home or choose softer career options like making candles. For Lakra, this is the biggest challenge. “Not only the public at large but even with families of deaf people, the urge is to sympathize with the disability. Families prefer that the deaf sit at home rather than work. The fear of putting them in society is major,” said Lakra.

A workday, Key Result Areas

Punctuality, speed and concentration on work are some of the prime attributes Lakra expects from his staff. “They have to report on time to work and that means they would report to their destinations too on time,” said Lakra. Speed plays a big factor for the courier company and it is because of the speed proposition that the company has bagged lucrative bulk orders from corporate clients, including a recent one from Vodafone which is keeping the little company on its toes right from 10 am to 6.30 pm at one stretch. While the men have to work in top speed on the field, the women have to keep up with the pace at the office while sorting the packages. The company delivers packages between Churchgate to Borivali on the western corridor, CST (VT) to Mulund on the central corridor and CST (VT) to Mankhurd on the Harbour Line (all suburban local railway lines in Mumbai). For nearby areas such as Nariman Point, CST (VT) and Churchgate, the Mirakle boys tread on foot. While for suburban areas, the train is the travel mode.

Like many courier companies which make their mark in specific types of packages, Mirakle Couriers hopes to be the best at ferrying fragile packages. Keeping in mind the nature of its employees and that closely-knit nature of the setup, Lakra thinks that they will be best suited to transport packages which require extra care.

Training

Training is an ongoing process at Mirakle Couriers and not restricted to annual programmes like at other companies. Since Lakra believes that his company is not a charity and has to compete with some of the more known companies in the courier business, one has to be on the ball at all times. Training for proper body language, using the right walking shoes, coming back with delivery reports, wearing clean clothes is an everyday matter with the company. Keeping nails short and fingers clean is also an important must with the company. After all it is the fingers and nails of a courier boy that one notices first when a delivery is made or when he hands you over a pen to sign on the delivery report. The courier boys are also trained to close and open lifts fully since they are unable to hear lift chimes and may spend precious minutes just waiting for a lift to start. Since competition is tough, speed is also an issue that the company works very hard to keep up with.

For Lakra, it is daily habit to make sure that his staff look presentable and are clean in their appearance. Delivery reports are checked everyday and any discrepancy is dealt with immediately. Earlier, the company used to have daily meetings but since they took up precious time, they were done away with and work starts as immediately as when the boys walk in at 9.30 am.

Increments

How does Lakra recognise a good employee from a yet-to-learn type? “We have parameters for them to function with. Speed, delivery reports, number of packages delivered in a time-frame are some of the parameters on which they are checked,” said Lakra. Increments are doled out accordingly. Mirakle Couriers pays the minimum wages. Lakra has a proper conversation (in sign language) with his employees when he thinks they need to perk up in any sphere. In the courier business, even one wrong move can mean a client switching sides forever. Hence it is a daily task to keep the machinery oiled and working at all times.

Stress factors

One would think that such a systematic setup would leave Lakra with hardly any stress, but that’s a far cry. The competitive environment in which his company functions and his urge to make companies and people to realise the potential competence of hearing-disabled people is what keeps Lakra thinking deep at nights, hiring new staff being his first concern. Since inception, word-of-mouth has helped. But societal pressures and over-protective families make hiring difficult from time to time. The company also has to strive hard to make sure its courier boys are treated like any other and that on the field, their disability goes unnoticed. The idea is for them to provide such high level of service that the clients do not even realise that their courier boy is deaf (this is something that the reporter in this story can vouch for, since she spent a few hours with one of the courier boys and at no point did any of the clients suspect the disability or was there any kind of wrangle because of it).

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Walking the Talk with Umesh Madhavkar (age 23 years), a Mirakle Couriers employee as he delivered packages in Mumbai’s Fort area

Madhavkar’s one giant step is equal to two of mine and it was one uphill task trying to keep pace with this young courier boy. It seemed like Madhavkar knew every paving-block en route and smoothly turned at every road corner as if he were walking in his backyard. He zipped in and out of the labyrinths of the Fort area like he was on a bike only stopping attentively for red signal lights and to re-check addresses on his packages.

One of the first buildings we went to was the Army Navy building. Madhavkar displayed his packages (mobile bills) to the watchman seated in the foyer who murmured ‘paanch mala’ (fifth story) and looked the other way. Not having understood immediately, Madhavkar looked questioningly at the watchman, who then repeated ‘paanch’ a little loudly. Madhavkar walked to the lift and got off on the fifth-floor and kept hunting for the company whose name was mentioned on the package. His eyes swiftly moved from one office to another along the archaic corridors. He finally found his office and with a smile delivered the package. The lady at the reception who was on the phone and even before we walked in completely, simply signed and gave back the delivery report, continuing her phone conversation.

The next two packages were to be delivered in the same building and Madhavkar signaled to me to take the stairs and not wait for the lift. As Madhavkar clutched the remaining mobile bills in his hand, I noticed the name of the company missing, only the recipient’s name. That sent a worry line across Madhavkar’s forehead who gestured that we would have to get into many offices to search for this person. We entered the office of Newswire 18. The watchman seated at the reception said that there was no such person with that name and when Madhavkar looked intently at him, the watchman realised that something was amiss and signaled the same message with his hands in the air.

He urged us to look into the next office which was Vaishnavi Corporate Communications. Madhavkar then marched off to Vaishnavi, (I was still doubling my steps to keep to his speed) and gave the package to the receptioniist. To Madhavkar’s good luck, the person did work there but had unfortunately left the company a while ago. When Madhavkar did not understand this at the first take, he looked at the receptionist again with a smile and she repeated that the person in question had left the company. Madhavkar understood, took back the package and raced down the steps again to a building on the opposite side of the road.

While crossing the road, Madhavkar fixed his eyes at the signal lights as if it were a monument of splendour. He looked at me and waived his hand asking me to wait patiently for the lights to turn for us to cross. He also made sure that both of us were standing along the zebra lines.

The next building was Jehangir Building and the guard asked Madhavkar where he wanted to go. On seeing the address on the package, he directed him accordingly. A pleasant Parsi lady, a receptionist at Camphor and Allied, greeted Madhavkar with a smile when he delivered the mobile bill to her. When she learnt that he was deaf (I told her so as to understand her thoughts), she smiled even more profusely while returning the delivery report.

In Navsari building, a few blocks away, the liftman Yashpal Tripathi probably recognised Madhavkar and was extremely courteous to him. He spoke loudly and told Madhavkar that while one of the packages belonged to an office on the third floor, the other was on the way to the first floor. The top floor office was of Kalyani and Company Chartered Accountants and Madhavkar was welcomed by a smiling Parsi lady named Farida Kasar. Again I told Kasar that Madhavkar was deaf. On hearing, the petite lady broke into a huge grin and with her arms gesturing a hug, she told Madhavkar that she would henceforth speak slowly to make sure he understands and that he should not worry about anything. Madhavkar smiled and walked away after delivering the package.

Throughout that part of the day, Madhavkar did 30 to 40 other deliveries in the deep alleys of the Fort area. After covering many more buildings and being greeted by some friendly and some not-so-friendly people I bid Madhavkar a goodbye. Slowly but surely Madhavkar disappeared into the milling crowd and in the dark foyers of the old buildings. I turned and traced my steps backwards, wondering how many more packages Madhavkar would have delivered by the close of the day with his giant strides.