At 36, Mahape resident Akhtar Dhale’s struggles and dreams are much like anyone else his age. He spends 1.5 hours getting to his Goregaon office and is yet to figure out a way around his taxes so that he can save enough from his Rs 11,000 monthly salary to buy a home. He meets his wife, Yasmin, who stays in Pune, only on the weekends because he lives in a hostel run by Byculla’s 36-year-old non-profit organisation, the Helen Keller Institute for Deaf and Deafblind. Dhale says it that provided him a home when he was nine, along with the requisite training he needed to get a job.

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