In a by-lane of Banjara Hills, road no 12, I passed by a security guard obviously returning home from a shift change. Still in his uniform and clutching his lunch bag and other things under one arm, he looked like any other watchman.
Then I see that he's only got the one arm.
After the initial disconcert (which I'm ashamed of ), my first reaction was to joke that we need this man's marketing skills.
But it really isn't a joking matter.
If a disabled man can convince at least one other person that he's quite capable of guarding whatever it is he is, that must've been a hell of a sell.
I couldn't get him out of my mind, so I just directed my mind into thinking about what I could get out of this.
1) To shirk on life, there are actually no reasons, just excuses.
He could've turned the missing arm into a miserable stump and begged at the city lights, but he didn't.
Contrastingly , I met a young bright child who had to discontinue studying and take up a job, because his dad was "too sad with his life" to go out and work for his wife and teen son😡.
2) Heart Attitude is a real thing.
This guy had a smile and a holler for his friends, in 39 deg celsius!
Sadly, I, with all limbs intact, in my car, was probably muttering under my breath about car A/C being inadequate in this summer.
3) We have a crap attitude towards Disabilities.
When I found myself feeling disconcerted, as I mentioned before, it was an eye opener to me that we do wince at disabilities. I was quite upset with myself.
What we project is not sadness. It's cringing.
And that's really pathetic.
Culturally we're so instilled with the unclean, unnice, betters... Physical and Mental Disabilities are still seen as 'the others'.
We can't all be healers and can't all have the necessary tools to handle these people and give them the help they need, but surely we're all capable of Empathy?
They don't need anything from you actually, except to be treated with sensitivity and basic decency.
If you've followed my IG posts, you'd have seen my kids posing for the World Down Syndrome Day.
I did that to just tell a special mom, dad or sibling out there that we see you, we feel for you, stand with you and you're appreciated.
And you know, more than that, I actually did it for a selfish reason: I wanted my kids to take time out and start thinking about these things.
To start being sensitive and take the small proactive steps to support people in ways they can.
It's the only way forward.
