You dont need two hands to clap back
hello everyone my name is anushka and i
want to thank all of you
and tedx for inviting me and having me
on this platform
and allowing me to share my story with
you i want to start with a recent
incident that happened
with me i was moving into my new
apartment in bombay in december
and i was getting out of the cab and i
had you know big suitcases
and so the security guard of the
building saw me you know struggle
because i was you know evidently
struggling with like three bags
and he nicely offered to help me come
and take my bag
upstairs to my apartment building and so
he takes my bags he goes to the building
elevator
and while we’re in the elevator he’s
asking me general questions about where
i’m from
whether i’ve just moved in and so on
and then there’s a moment of silence
after that moment of silence
he goes
translation to english i feel very sorry
for you
your life is ruined in this context
he was evidently referring to me having
only one arm
which in turn meant that i didn’t have a
life
some of you watching this might be
wondering oh my god how can someone say
that
you’d be surprised but i get that a lot
and all the time
to set some context cut to nine years
ago
i am on a school trip with my friends
from boarding school
it’s march 2012 i am 15 years old
and as part of this school trip we’re in
gujarat
now because we were traveling in a large
group
you know if you’re traveling a large
group with 50 girls you’re using
air-conditioned buses
so we were in the u and we were wrapping
up on the beach to
you know get a head start to go to the
next city that we were supposed to be at
and the you is actually the only place
in gujarat where
you can get alcohol without a permit so
we’re getting ready to go to the bus and
turns out
our bus driver had indulged
in a couple of drinks and soon after
that he got behind the wheel to drive us
to where we were going
the next thing i remember is the bus
losing its balance
hitting a divider flipping to the right
and then skidding a few feet and
everyone around me went in panic mode
i remember people running out screaming
and
frantically all my friends were all
frantically running out of the bus
and one of my friends kind of saw me
because i was just fallen flat to the
i’d fallen flat to the right
and uh she saw me and she went anushka
we got to go
you know let’s go and i’m telling her
yeah i’m coming
and my head is so dizzy and i
thought that it was because i’d hit my
face to the glass on the side
and you know because i was bleeding from
that side so i thought maybe that’s why
my head is dizzy
and i was frantically trying to maneuver
myself but i couldn’t get myself
up and then my friend came back and she
said come on we have to go
and i tried to get myself up and
obviously
by that time i realized that my arm was
nothing but flesh and bone
and there was a pool of blood to my
right which was all mine
by this time my teachers and my friends
have also realized
that i’m severely injured and the u is a
very small town
so there’s a tiny hospital about
you know 10 12 kilometers away from
where we were
and despite the fact that it was a small
town somewhere and somehow that day
there was a van full of army people and
a van full of doctors
because there was a parade taking place
in that city
those army people helped get a crane
and put the bus up so they straightened
the bus up
and i remember this uh man
you know come up to me and you know he’s
telling me shut your eyes because when
they were straightening the bus up
you know they obviously didn’t want the
remainder of the glass to kind of
go into my eyes i was rushed to the
nearest hospital
and by then i’d lost 60 of my blood
one of these army individuals had also
donated blood to me that night
safe to say that he’s one of the many
reasons that i am alive
and sitting here giving this talk in the
first place
let it also be known that my parents at
this point in time
are in a different city altogether and
all they’ve been told
is that i am injured and i’ve
been taken to the hospital so what they
went through that night
was a completely different story because
they had no idea whether i had an arm or
not
they’d just been told that my right hand
was severely injured and that
i had no pulse and no blood pressure
there was also a teacher that night who
eventually once they stabilized me
rode with me to a different city that
was four hours away where i was supposed
to be taken for further medical
assistance
that teacher is also one of the reasons
why i’m here today after that another
city that i was moved to
i was finally moved to bombay for an
extended stay at the hospital
and you know for further recovery eight
months after that
and after i recovered of all my injuries
i was
i went back to boarding school and that
very teacher
who’d ridden with me that night in that
ambulance in the middle of the night
to a different city in while i was in
the condition that i was in
had been diagnosed with swine flu and
also passed away
i had basically suffered two incredible
losses
in one year now the harder part of going
through this incident
is not the fact that i had that i lost
an
arm and then i had to you know learn how
to do everything from scratch
such as wearing my clothes writing with
my left hand and so on
the harder part of this is the societal
scrutiny that comes with being a
physically disabled individual or a
physically disabled woman in my case
in india because indian society
simply assumes that if you have a
physical disability it’s the end of the
road for you
now i work in a relatively open-minded
environment
and i’m surrounded by people such as my
colleagues and my friends
who i don’t have to justify anything to
i don’t
have to tell them or you know explain to
them
as to how i lead my life on a regular
basis
but an auto driver and an uber driver
taking me to the to my next destination
will always bring up the fact that
nobody’s going to marry me leave that
aside
there’s a certain educated section of
indian society
that in the past has walked up to me and
asked me as to what i’m doing with my
life
and whether i’ve thought about the
marriage situation
with my situation it is these
assumptions
that weigh you down in the long run and
even if you are thriving and doing well
for yourself they make
they instill a feeling of self-doubt and
you begin to wonder that because
you aren’t as society
would want you to be conventionally it
just makes you wonder are you not
good enough it is also these assumptions
that are the reason
why accessibility provisions are
essentially non-existent in india
because if you don’t talk about how a
certain section of people
leads their lives how and why
would you make an effort towards finding
solutions to their problems
do you all know that every time i go to
a salon to get waxed
you know because i’m a girl so i have to
get waxed every time i go to a salon to
get waxed i
have to pay for both arms i mean there’s
no because there’s no provision and it’s
a standard price
so every time i’m at the cash counter
the cashier gets really awkward and then
he or she doesn’t know what to say
and then they charge me the full 1000
rupees and i mean there’s no way that
i’m getting two arms waxed
so and that is the problem the problem
is that there is no conversation
surrounding people with disabilities
in india and that is why there are no
solutions
to the little things that we have to
deal with on a regular basis
i realized the lack of accessibility
provisions in india when i first went to
the united states
while i was there i went to the united
states to study
while i was there nobody was staring at
me
nobody really questioned how i was you
know when i was going to how i was
leading my life
nobody ever told me that oh you don’t
have an arm so your life is over
they never scrutinized me they simply
lauded me for leading the life that i
was leading
and they never questioned as to why i
was in a 50 people dance class
or why wall climbing with one arm was a
good idea
it was that sense of normalcy that gave
me the confidence to be in that 50
people dance class in the first place
despite the fact that i knew
that i probably wouldn’t get more steps
right it made me feel comfortable
in my own skin that sense of
normalcy is what was essentially
acceptance for me in my case
and i felt so accepted that
by the time i moved back to india post
graduation
the scrutiny stopped bothering me i
started brushing off the stairs and the
questions
i remember in my early days after my
accident there was a point in time where
i would
walk into a restaurant or any crowded
place and i would pretend to be on my
phone
because i knew people were staring at me
so i would pretend to text even though i
wasn’t texting anyone and i would rush
to my table
because i simply did not want to
acknowledge the fact that they were
looking
because that would make me very
uncomfortable
but that isn’t the case anymore i
realized
that i may not be able to change the
fundamentals of society
but what i can do is change the
narrative and change my narrative
the bus driver who was the reason behind
this accident
and the the reason for this lifetimes
for a lifetime’s worth of damage done to
me served a mere three months
in jail and he’s out and walking free
now i definitely cannot do anything
about that absurdly reduced sentence but
what i can do
is that i can do something with my life
i realized
that all i had to do was turn the why me
why did this happen to me into
unfortunately me
and what’s next i realized that the
alleged limitations
that i thought i had and that would that
i thought that were preventing me from
doing the things that i can do today
weren’t bothering me because i couldn’t
do anything
they were bothering me because they were
being reinforced by people
i didn’t even know so i broke free from
the cage
of that scrutiny and from the weight of
that scrutiny
by realizing one and one thing only
and that is that i can do whatever i
want
i realized that you don’t need
to prove yourself to everyone as long as
you
are at peace with the fact that you are
doing great
because when you are comfortable in your
own skin
you exuberate a sense of confidence that
makes the others comfortable
around you i realized that you don’t
need two hands to clap back at society
and tell them that you can in fact do
everything that the people around you
can
if not more and that is essentially what
redefined freedom for me
i channeled my energy towards doing
things for people like me
i’ve worked with ngos in the past and
the current my current workplace has a
program that is working towards
making all written and video content
accessible to individuals with cognitive
disabilities
this is how i managed to find the
positives
in a tragedy like this one and actually
reap the benefits out of it to move
ahead and move forward
and this is what you can do to make
differently abled individuals
like me a little bit more comfortable in
their own skin and in their society and
in society
one normalize normalize conversation
around the fact
that there is a certain section of
people that may not look
as conventional as everyone else but
still manages
to do the same things and lead a normal
life if not more on a daily basis
two spark a conversation talk
about the struggles that people like us
go through
regularly because only then will you be
able to assist them
and find solutions and make society more
inclusive and accessible to all
three and the most important one always
keep an open mind because you never know
a person with a disability visible or
not visible
may have the potential of a lifetime and
may actually surprise you with what they
can do
after all thank you
you