Ramesh Das was the first boy at our second home in Jubilee Park, which we started in 2002. He had been housed in Nabo Jeevan, a Missionary of Charity home in Howrah District of Kolkata. When we started to look for a new flat, because our first home was already full, we took the cook from Nabo Jeevan as our carer and he brought along Ramesh.

Ramesh is deaf. He is very independent. He makes friends easily outside of the shuktara house and does errands for local people - this doesn't come free and he is very ingenious about finding ways to make money. He will scavenge the streets for fallen coconuts and then sell them to the local shop. This is just one of his many jobs. He joined Shuktara Cakes right at the beginning but the routine did not suit him and he soon left to go back to his errand running.

An intern from Gallaudet University who was working for us at shuktara once said that she thought he was an unusual young man with a huge hidden intelligence and she felt that out of all the shuktara boys he was the one that would be able to survive anywhere!!