In today’s episode of discrimination and lack of accessibility for persons with disability, I’ll talk about few of my travel experience. So you must be wondering what am I talking about!! You’ve rarely seen any person with disability travelling and very few of them having any problem/difficulty. The most inaccessible scenario you can think of is getting into toilet and taking a loo or poo. So you fix western toilet and you think that your job is done. Hurray! You’ve made the place accessible!! No sir, sorry to burst the dream of your accessible world, you haven’t made the place accessible.
I don’t know which travel experience to start with and how many of them will you be able to read before feeling pity for me. I’ll try to stop just after making my point and right before you reach the pity part. And if you’re still feeling pity by the end of it, YOU cannot do anything else. And you can please leave.
This pity reminds me of the most recent travel journey by train. There was a decent hangout (for LDR it’s too much) planned with my girlfriend and I had managed to get all the tickets but one. The ticket which was supposed to take me to her was still on waiting and I started looking at the alternatives. Since it was a small journey, I finally decided to travel by the disabled coach. I was trying to figure out if the train has a disabled coach because few trains have removed it. It is mandatory to have a coach by the way. Now when I’m writing it, I’m not sure how many of you knew that there’s any such coach. Nevermind. Then I came across an article which might sound horrifying for you but it was normal for me. I knew I’m going to face something similar. But I still planned to leave by disabled coach. I’ve done this before in cases of emergency and it was no less of an emergency.
When I reached there, few kids of age around 16 were sitting on one of the seats. I asked them to get up and leave it for me. Hang on, it’s normal. You’ve seen nothing. This coach is going to be filled with people with every age and gender who are NOT disabled. Oh, should I call it divyaangs? Sorry that I didn’t call them divyaang but you can call us divyaang and tell us that you’re doing a favor by not throwing us out of the train. You feel pity for us that’s why you’re letting us stay in the “divyaang coach”. That’s what a person told a divyaang old guy who when tried to ask him to leave.
Eh? Why didn’t my woke ass do anything? Because, one, I didn’t want to be thrown out. Two, I couldn’t fight them. A punch to them will probably break my own finger. Stop reading already if you think I should’ve used twitter or asked policeman for help. The old guy went down and asked a nearby policeman to get the coach cleared. He came, few non-divyaangs left. The policeman left, the non-divyaangs came back with more energy and creative slangs and pity to fight with. Few years back, I literally saw a policeman taking money to let people in and keep their parcel like wheat, rice, motorcycle and stuff inside the coach. Sometimes they use the accessible washroom, with western toilet, that we were talking about earlier, as a storeroom. Divyaangs don’t pee or poo, did you know that? No? Oh god! I’m going to break so many news to you today!
So I did nothing. Because I knew that I can’t fight them. And I had once used twitter too. A policeman came after a few stations, cleared the coach, and took my picture. Maybe as a proof. And the way he did everything, I didn’t feel any good. He was irritated that because of me, he had to go through all the trouble. And there’s always a high chance that the “normal” people are going to come back. And I didn’t want to get beaten up at the next station. And the old guy was somewhat already been threatened by the non-divyaangs. So I left the overly crowded train at my destination leaving all the sleeping non-divyaangs in the coach and aked for their forgiveness. Thankfully, I had confirm tickets in 2AC for the return journey.
I was coming back after staying in an accessible hotel which had few very high steps just in front of the building. But does having a ticket in 2AC or 3AC or Sleeper makes the journey accessible and smooth? The doors are too high. There are ramps at few stations in TN or Kerala because of some activist. But all the other stations? Nothing. Get ready to be lifted. You got inside the train? Good. What now? Go to your seat, maybe? How? Did you ever think about the narrow doors? No. It was serving it’s purpose. I never had to think about it. So what now? Get ready to be lifted. What did you say? Your seat is in the middle of the coach? Ask/beg people to exchange the seat which is nearest to the gate with yours. They agreed? Happy journey! You’ve to pee? But you already said that divyaangs don’t pee or poo!! Liar!!
That was a typical, very normal and very good travel journey experience. This one time when I was in a passenger train for the very first time, someone even told me that I shouldn’t be travelling by “normal” coaches and I should go back to the disabled coach. I’m not allowed to travel by normal coaches. They were innocent people. They didn’t know that divyaangs travel by divyaang coach because of the forgiveness of normal people. Because normal people let them travel by divyaang coach. They’re not allowed to travel. Maybe it was not communicated to them yet. But then I was with my friend who started fighting with them. It was the first time he was seeing something like this. He was also innocent. He didn’t know that divyaangs are not allowed to travel. I hadn’t told it to him before travelling with him. But I’ve really made peace with everything. I really don’t care about these things anymore. I just travel. And I’ve travelled so much after my accident!! More stories for some other time!
If you’ve read through the whole Ramayana and reached here, I would like you to notice the width of train coaches when you travel next time. Imagine what it feels to be lifted by people to get inside the main gate of a coach. How it feels to leave the wheelchair at the door, the only thing that makes you a bit mobile and independent, because your wheelchair can’t go inside the train. Take a look into the disabled coach if you manage to take out some time out of your happy entertaining train tour. Then tell me why you don’t see any person with disability travelling!