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
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