Its different!

I was looking forward for this weeks meet as i could not attend ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­the last two meetings. I reached the place and saw found Manohar waiting outside. Later we were joined by Sanjeeth, JP and Yuthika. Yuthika had brought the cake in view of her belated Bday which was really sweet and delicious. Ghar ke cake ki yaad aa gai mujhe kakke, yummyies J. Girls are really good at these; wish we had few more girls in the Pune SHG.

So, anyhow cake khatam kiya and then we thought of the business but found that the hall was not available for the whole day and we realized this time Its different!. So we decided to go out and face the fears head on. Yes we plan to go and talk to the people about stammering, their awareness level and what they basically think about the problem, mainly we planned to concentrate on the stuttering interviews. We divided ourselves in two groups. Sanjeeth and JP in one team. Manohar and I formed the other.

The targets were to be at Shoppers stop and the SGS mall which were in the proximity. We reached in the parking lot of the shoppers stop and discussed about the set of questions we were planning to ask to the people. We would be starting with salesmen and then the main course will be customers in the mall. Then we came to the first floor and for the one last time summarized the whole process and decided to move on with in our team. It did look as if we were enacting the scene of some suspense hindi movie where the a gang of bad guys had some bad intensions.

Anyways the business now!

In my team manohar caught the sales girl as the first victim and later I poked in. She was really sweet and compassionate about the PWS. She told she think the root cause of the problem is the fear and the low confidence level and we should encourage the PWS to talk more. If they stutter on some specific word, they should speak the same word again and again. Another important think she told that it really does not matter if one stutters, to get a girl/boy in life and quoted that kajol likes SRK inspite of his problem in MNIK because he is good at heart. Wish girls could see manohar’s heart J. At last She asked why were we doing this and wished us good luck in our endeavor

Next we caught of two young guys who did not know or had not met anyone who had stutter.

Strange huh…..but still me and manohar rapid fired the questions. Takeaways were PWS should socialize to improve. Ok boss, gotcha!

Then we met a _{­­­­­­­}pathologist, not of speech though. We asked if she has five minutes.. she told yes but quickly change to no and could only spare two minutes….ah …was she so busy?? We were not asking for counseling us. There is no point in counseling; we have had a lot of them. She was not much interested in talking and told to give our card and she ll refere anyone who comes to her…blah blah, but pappe where was the card??

Thank you pathologist, time to move on…fast track ad guys are really cool… got to learn from them.

Lastly we met another two salesmen and spoke to them a lot. They were really interested in talking to us. Small people are more humble I guess…they also told they have another salesman working with them and who stutters, but unfortunately was on leave. Manohar gave his number and asked to contact us if the guy would like to join SHG. Found one stutterer in 2 hrs…hurray ;-) These guys thought stutter could also be due to problem in the shape of the tongue and mentioned the stutterer sales guy has broader and thicker tongue which does not fit in the mouth and because of which the people stutter. OMG!…I was wondering ye kya hai bhaiya….these theories can fail all the research’s of years… thoda un logon ko bataya bhai aisa nahi hai, and the different assumed possible reasons which are known. We thanked them. Ok doston, Phir milenge chalte chalte.

Then the two triumphant groups met again and we summarized our experiences.

JP and sanjeeth also met a no. of people…Mainly they practiced first by asking the prices of the different items. Bhai log agar bag, goggles, t-shirts etc. ke prices pata karne ho toh please contact them, I bet they can help you with the different brands. They practiced voluntary stuttering and bouncing while intervieing

@JP and sanjeeth. I don remember the specifics, please add if you wish.

Then we had lime soda outside… substitute for energizer. Sanjeeth left after that and we moved to SGS mall. There we three met people and continued our quest. Few more people were interviewed.

1^st guy with family---nooooooooooo.. not interested in talking

2^nd guy (sitting alone and free)—will not laugh at the people who sttutters, thanks sir ji..aap jaise logon ki zarrorat hai. He also told to accept the problem and other people should accept PWS. Bale bale J

3^rd guy (standing near elevator)—will complete the sentence if some one stutters in fron of him… we told him not to and explained why not to…aap jaise senti logon ke liye toh hum gyan baant rahen hain

4^th person(lady with family). She and her husband spoke and really compassionate towards. Most of the things she told is mentioned by one person or another above.

Then we had nice lunch and ice cream and departed. Story khatam Sunday ki.

Next week we are planning for the para gliding based on the strength of the people.

Because its got to be different!