The Mirakle in Mumbai: Life Inside a Social Business
Thursday, February 18, 2010
We liked Rohan Mehta’s diary-style insight into the newest form of world famous Indian entrepreneurship: a ’social business,’ in this case a courier company founded by an ex-Merrill Lynch banker, employing deaf people to deliver corporate mail.
“I just got back from work.
To do that I took a train from Churchgate and an auto rickshaw from the station to Khar (W).
I’m so Bombay now.
As you might have heard, the trains are absolute madness. I am grateful for my eager teen concert going days where I learnt the important life skill of navigating through a sea of stubborn bodies to get closer to a stage. This is exactly how you get off trains here. Throw your body weight into the crowd and squeeze through tiny gaps of passengers who stand their ground firmly. Then you have to deal with the strong current of people coming on to the train. None of this British “after you sir” attitude. It’s quite a fulfilling feeling once you get off though.
In the morning I usually go to the Churchgate office.
I get there around 10:00 and see everyone’s smiling faces. They say good morning to me (a hand gesture that reassembles something like a flower opening up followed by a thumbs up.)
I am currently working for a company called Mirakle Couriers. A For-Profit social business enterprise that employs low income deaf adults to collect, sort and deliver corporate mail. Some of the big business industrial companies are our clients. We have also recently got more into delivering specialist magazine publications to their subscribers.
We have 45 deaf employees (ages 20-30), 15 girls who handle back office data entry and 30 boys who run deliveries in a designated areas.
