Recalling my unforgettable encounters with the ‘disabled’ on the occasion of International Disability Day

On the occasion of International Disability Day today on December 3, I would like to quickly recall a few episodes that are entrenched in my life regarding people we so effortlessly brand as "disabled".

I recently celebrated the silver jubilee of my journalistic life. In all these years, some of my most humbling experiences were meeting disabled people while I was covering this sector off and on.

The beginning was made in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) where I studied. AMU has an amazing school for the visually-impaired students, some of whom were in our class and studying as research scholars.

A senior, who was doing his doctorate in English literature, particularly impressed me for his sheer dedication to his study and an immense sense of humour. He was always on time, sat in his specific chair in the seminar room of the English department and would barely take help from any one of us to read him out the books not available on Braille.

Once I asked him, "Arshad Bhai, (name changed/seniors are called brothers - bhai in AMU; It's a culture there) how do you manage at home? Who does all your work and feeds you? Are you married?"

Till date, I haven't forgotten his answer, and it actually triggered in me a desire to cover this area as a journalist later.

He said, "I am not married yet and I am in my early 30s. I do all my work on my own. I wash my clothes, I often cook tid-bits, set my cupboard, my room. I dress up on my own, go to the market, buy vegetables, hire a rickshaw alone. My mother cooks food though, and she keeps on saying everyday that her child is blind and God knows what will he do in his life. She keeps on bickering about my state of affairs without realizing that I am at least able to do all my work by myself and don't trouble her or depend on her most of the times. She doesn't appreciate or acknowledge it. She refuses to see that I would also be capable of earning a living once I complete my PhD! All she can see is my blindness. She refuses to understand that I didn't choose to be born a blind. It hurts."

I asked, "How do you react to it?" He said, "I tell her I’m doing my best in this state at times, but mostly I keep quiet as it is a daily affair. The day I will earn perhaps she might feel my worth!"

From that day onwards, my respect for all visually-impaired people doubled and I felt humbled within.

This made me meet more people with different disabilities in the course of my professional life as a choice for human interest stories. From then on, I visited schools and organizations for the visually-impaired across Delhi to know how do they dream, what do they dream, what Diwali means to them and their interests that does or does not have to do anything with their sight, and so on. Each answer from them is an amazing and learning experience.

Nearly six years later in 2000, I joined an organization launching India's first news portal with feature writing as its main wing. I visited the National Association for the Blind (NAB) for a story, and learnt that there was no census conducted by the government of India on the disabled. I wrote and wrote against this, spoke to the ministers in the Social Welfare Department and within just a couple of years, the Indian Census on population included a category for enumerating the disabled persons too. So I can proudly claim to be the first journalist in India to have influenced the government to bring a census on them. The story came on rozanna.com, a feature section on Jain Television's first news portal of this name.

Soon the sector interested me more and more. Among hundreds of stories reeling in my head, I would like to recount one that doesn't leave me.

The great art/theatre pioneer Alkazi Family in Delhi has one soul named Faizal Alkazi, whose wife Radhika is an expert of this area. Faizal had produced and directed an amazing play with kids with special abilities aged between six and 14. Most of them had cerebral palsy and/or locomotive problems, years ago. The 50-minute play had long dialogues, dance, music, and a lot of fun that these children performed with élan.

In one of the scenes, a boy who was nearly 13, climbed the stage doing somersaults from the floor, crossing nearly five wooden stairs. He neither had limbs nor hands! Just a body, from head to torso. And he danced and danced on the stage doing repeat somersaults on the foot tapping music we all were clapping on.

I remember so clearly, the fully-packed Stein Auditorium at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi was throbbing with loud applause, standing ovation and tears in our eyes. As we clapped, the smallest kid in the play, affected with cerebral palsy, started laughing, dancing, clapping and running on the stage while he still was playing a character! We all laughed heartily at his innocence!

That day we all laughed and cried together. There was nothing called sympathy but empathy. There was pride filled in the ambience with humility as its companion.

All I wish to say by this story on the occasion of International Disability Day is that it's a world we have nearly forgotten amid the political frenzy and its over-coverage in the media. It certainly does not give me happiness the way Arshad Bhai's statement of confidence, the Census on the disabled and that play does. I wish those days came back not only as a memory on this occasion but got featured in the media. A sensitive media too moulds opinion.