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 Caroline D'Souza

 

If more people were for people...

I never expected my Diary on Post-Polio Syndrome to create the overwhelming response it did -- thank you, dear friends.

It is your touching letters that prompt me to pen this piece, to share with you a few incidents that I have considered too personal to reveal till now. Maybe there is a lesson for you in there...

The increasing constraints in my mobility over the past 16 years have caused a lot of depression and frustration. As the single earner in a family of four, my priority was clear: I had to keep my job, come what may.

The physically disadvantaged are a microscopic minority in India. Yet -- or perhaps because of it -- the government hasn't shown much concern towards us.

Yes, we do get a rebate on income tax. And yes, we get Rs 100 as conveyance allowance every month.

But each petrol price-hike pokes a bigger hole in our personal budget. Mine, for instance, has increased from Rs 850 to Rs 950 just recently.

The social welfare department pointedly overlooks our needs and disadvantages. Our political bigwigs constantly wangle trips abroad for a thousand ingenious reasons. Have they not noticed the facilities for people like us in every building and public place there?

No one abroad, I am sure, feels so incapacitated, so confined, as we are made to feel in India.

I love India. Normally, I wouldn't ever want to leave my roots. But as a PPS category citizen I most certainly would like to shift someplace abroad -- say, Australia, where I have experienced the difference, the freedom.

I am a schoolteacher, living in Goa. The transport system in the state is a good deal with the private lobby.

And it is from them that I have experienced the most depraved, most disgusting behaviour.

After school one day as I neared a stationary bus, it moved a little ahead. I followed. Just as reached it, it moved ahead again.

This occurred two or three times. Each movement was punctuated by "walk faster". Only when they started guffawing did I realise that they were having fun at my expense.

When they tried it the next day I didn't take the bait. It never occurred to me to make a written complaint to the Regional Transport Office then. I should have, I realise now.

There was this school where I used to teach before. About five of us commuted by the same bus, the earliest we could catch.

The bus used to be late at times. And because of my slow gait I used to reach a couple of minutes later, just as the assembly was over and classes were about to begin.

Though I explained the situation to my superior she wouldn't have any of it. So I was made to either come early by a hired motorbike (which hurt my budget badly because it cost Rs 10 instead of the 75 paise fare), or stay in school like an errant boy "to make up for that time".

Let me narrate another incident that made me sad and at the same time angry.

It occurred when I was asked to correct SSC Board examination papers. I really enjoy assessment work. If the centre has no steps at the entrance it was fine.

Unfortunately, the school where I was deputed had -- a lot of them, with nothing to hold on for support. So each morning I had to wait for a lady teacher to come by and help me.

That part was fine. What wasn't was that I was posted to a school some 30 minutes away. The bike charge to and from the centre was more than the travel and dearness allowances put together.

Naturally the board paid only bus fare. It was cutting such a huge hole in my budget that I had to request them to take me off the duty.

When I approached the social welfare department to enquire where there was any provision for special conveyance allowance for such assignments, I was told I could only be paid "as per the rules" and there was no consideration for cases like mine "in the rules".

The Board work was painful, but I enjoyed it so much. Surely as a matter of human interest, the problem could have been considered and a resolution taken at a later date? Someday, sometime? Is that too much to ask?

If such discrimination and care-a-damn attitude can be traumatising for a person like me, what about the hundreds of others in worse situations? Because they are voiceless nonentities, because they have no godfathers to support them, must their rights -- their human rights -- be conveniently forgotten?

Whether able-bodied or disabled, we come across similar situations in life. This can change only if the general public are made aware of the people who are missing opportunities.

What I am trying to do through this Diary maybe like a pebble thrown in a lake. The ripples it creates may not amount to much. But there is always the hope that one of those tiny waves will touch the shoes of a concerned social or political activist.

Right now I am experimenting with the trial-and-error method to tap the right people who can stir this awareness to a full blaze. With your voices to echo and boost mine, I am sure my persistence will pay off...

If more people were for people
All people everywhere
There'd be a lot less people to worry about
And a lot more people who care
.

Caroline D'Souza would love it if you, dear reader, came forward to fight for the disadvantaged. Mail us your suggestions.

 
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