The Handicapped Coach

Recently I was in Mumbai after a gap. I observed that they had introduced a compartment reserved for people with disabilities and ailments. I thought it was a good idea and would really help people who needed extra care. But the experience turned out to be very different.

When I reached the platform, a train was already arriving. I confirmed with a boy standing nearby that the train went was slow local for Borivali, and he said “yes”. I observed that he was carrying a bouquet of flowers in his hands and seemed to be a delivery boy. Incidentally, the compartment that stopped in front of us was the one reserved for people with disabilities. When I tried to board it by mistake, I saw a man standing at the door shouting loudly for everyone’s benefit about the status of the compartment. So I boarded the next one.

From inside my compartment, I could oversee the reserved compartment. It was largely unoccupied – with at most 5-6 people inside it. The boy with a bouquet of flowers was sitting at one of the front seats. At the next station, another man boarded the compartment and sat in front of him. This well-dressed apparently gentleman seemed to have his hands and legs affected by Polio. After some time, my attention was diverted towards them because of strong arguments being made which I could easily hear.

The man with Polio was asking the boy with bouquet of flowers if he was disabled. The boy said “yes”. The man asked for proof. “Do you have some document or certificate saying you have disability???” The boy replied that his hand had problem, which he had inserted deep inside his trousers’ pocket. The man demanded to be shown the actual disability and the boy kept insisting that he did not need to show it to the man. I disliked the man for being so adamant. The compartment was anyway vacant, and I did not understand his gesture of doing policing without authority. He kept verbally abusing the boy and it was very sad to watch. Had the man found his same courage to challenge a well-dressed visibly rich man with a strong built; like he was attacking the poor boy? I felt like challenging the man and telling him his fault, but kept mum as I was in a different compartment. Suddenly the man slapped the boy! The boy was agitated and kept saying some things and then brought out his hand from his trousers’ pocket. I think it indeed had some disability, because the man with Polio was taken aback for a moment. But then he started afresh, scolding the boy asking why he did not come clean when he first demanded the hand to be shown!

I am sure that the man would not have behaved with the boy in the same manner had the boy not been poor. He was a delivery boy delivering flowers to people on order – thereby bringing smiles on their faces. The man with Polio on the other hand looked well educated and employed. Perhaps he had got his education and government job due to his disability but it should have made him humble instead of being narcissist. Or may be the man used to face too much trouble in general compartments and hence when this reserved coach was introduced, he felt a need protect it against being occupied by able-bodied people. Whatever be his psychology, in his show of outrage he had slapped a disabled poor boy with no fault to be blamed for. The boy started crying, saying, “how could he hit me?”, but soon he had to stop. He won’t find sympathy from anyone around, not even from others with disability in that compartment, because he was poor and weak.

This experience reminded me that more than disability and any other problem, what is most insulting to people is their poverty. A person can be from any caste, religion or of any ability, but if he has money, he can buy his respectable place in society - at least on first meetings. This is why Balasaheb Thackeray used to say that there were only two castes in this world – rich and poor. Also, the above incident showed how exploitation of people needing care often happens in the hands of others “like them” too! It also proves that simply providing "reservations" on the basis of anything while ignoring "economic status" would always be unfair to some extent. 

With heavy heart and great pain, I saw the boy get down at the next station. In some time, he would walk or reach by bus to his customer and would deliver fresh flowers to him/her. His villain remained in the compartment. Next time an old man with his daughter boarded that compartment, and the villain was again looking at the woman with critical eyes – because she seemed able-bodied. Thank God that he did not choose to attack her. Even if she was able bodied, should she have left her father alone in the compartment while she boarded a next compartment – just because of the rules? I don’t think so. But how to explain this to the well-educated and well awakened men like the man in the above incident? Most difficult thing is to teach the teachers and discipline the discipliners – those who start to discipline others. Our society needs to be sensitive and show lots of empathy. Creating new compartments or a few seats reserved for people needing extra care are only small part of our collective gesture...

- Rahul Tiwary

Note: Views are personal and do not represent views of any organization associated with the author. [Detailed disclaimer]