Disability inclusion should be seen as a transactional approach, that person with disabilities and person without disabilities has to come to a step up, they have to step up together.

So that person with disabilities and person without disabilities can move together because only one-sided inclusion will be, will establish the charity model even more.

It’ll not take us to the social model or the rights-based model.

So if we need to break the charity model and push it out of the context, we have to, as people with disabilities, we have to give up some thoughts of embedded entitlement.

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World runs in a transactional process, you give some you get some, and also, merit has to count.

And when merit would count, the process of entire entitlement would gradually move out of the society and establishment.

And there, we can have amalgamation of people with disabilities, without disabilities together moving ahead and creating a egalitarian movement.

I had been a non-speaking person for 25 years of my life.

I have a genetic disorder due to which a critical enzyme named as dopamine is not getting secreted in my body, due to which all kind of disabilities have creeped in inside me.

If you see, there are visible disabilities, and there are invisible disabilities as well.

I am a person with severe dyslexia.

I cannot read.

And I had to hide this severe dyslexia thing from people, from my teachers.

God has given me a good memory, I utilize that to overcome the dyslexic thing.

Only after I joined uh Enable India, I could call out my dyslexia, for which I got a solution, not a segregation, okay!

Therefore, we imagine a particular group of job for each and every person with disabilities, for example, people with visually impairment are related to kind of, okay, ‘can you sing?’

‘Can you, can you, can you play an instrument?’

People on wheelchair, okay, okay, you can do a desk job.

But for my case, I’m being very privileged and lucky.

I call myself a privileged group of disabled person because opportunities that I have got, people, many are the people, more of a talented people may not have got those opportunities.

And, there I have done, firstly again that stereotyping was there, I was established as a computer programmer, I took a call that no I don’t want to do computer programming, then I went to become a radio jockey.

And then I acted in the movie.

Then I uh, kind of started working in social sector.

And, with severe form of disability, on a wheelchair, I have migrated from Kolkata to Bangalore, which is almost 2000 kms to find my dream job, okay?

I live a life here with a caregiver and that has been a big big challenge for me.

My job profile makes me to travel, but that’s not a problem because every problem, that I have learned over last 5 years, six years, every problem there is a solution.

If you have the solution-centric mindset, you can find the solution, if you see a barrier.

You don’t have to break any barrier to overcome it, you can bypass it, make a tunnel, climb it, you can, you don’t have to break anything all the time.

You need to…you need not have the stereotype.

You need to be flexible and innovative to overcome any barrier.

So, my dad, my father, who had been a doctor in the rural part of West Bengal, once we were going and uh uh kind of a passerby, saw me like this.

Like, I was on a wheelchair, my father was pushing my wheelchair for me, and make a sound like (clicks tongue).

So, I was very upset with that.

I was what, 13 or 14.

I was very upset with that.

Returning home, baba told that, ‘okay, why don’t you take this as a blessing?’

‘Why don’t you take this as a blessing because the person is concerned about you?

If the person is concerned about you, he has feelings.

When he has feelings, then he has energy.

That energy is coming out from that person in that manner.

Energy cannot be positive or negative, energy can be termed as energy.

So, the energy would help you to grow.

Energy would help you to understand the world.

And there, you need to understand, each and every individual with sympathy, is also a part of the society because they do not understand, because they did not have the exposure.’

There my approach changed completely.

Gradually I became more of a…I personally tried to become a more inclusive person, because I cannot tell, ‘You must show empathy’, no, that cannot be told.

Okay, ‘Sorry, I I am seeing you as a handicapped’, okay, you’re giving me a name, a phrase for recognizing me.

What’s the big deal?

Yes, with the gradual interaction, it’s my responsibility to change the narrative of that person who has that thought of handicapped as a word to identify a person with disabilities.

It cannot happen like that, just like that, because our school curriculums are not like that.

Our education system is not like that.

Our social structure is not like that.

So, when you are getting identified, when you are getting recognized, first get recognized with the name.

‘Handicapped’ is a wrong term, I totally agree, but change it by developing a friendship with the person.

Disability is to stay in the society.

Since the time that mankind have touched the earth, since the time that our society have evolved, disability has been a part.

Though visibility of disability was not there but disability was always there.