We got an opportunity to ask Eshwar (Batch of 2016-21) about his experiences with disability, and what changes he wishes to see in the world.
What do you wish people knew about disability?
I wish people made themselves aware about the disability/s as far as possible and were sensitive towards disabilities and not sympathetic.
How do you think a better world can be created for persons with disabilities?
It can be done if all of us feel sensitive towards disabilities, accept the presence of persons with disabilities in all areas and try to become as accommodating as possible to unleash the complete potential of persons with disabilities.
Within college, what has been the hardest thing for you to adjust to, owing to your disability?
People’s attitudes.
Do you think sometimes people do not see you beyond your disability?
Actually, people see us beneath our disability by adding more disabilities. For an instance, When some people see a visually impaired person, they assume that a visually impaired person cannot see, hear, talk and etc., which happened with me many times. People must understand that all of us will face disability at some point in our life. Further all of us need to understand that it is the spirit in a person which makes the difference in a person , but not the external disability. We can see in the life of Helen Keller, how she led her life and with multiple disabilities she became an inspirational person all over the world for not only persons with disabilities, but also to the humanity at large.
Hence, the conclusion is that we should not discriminate a person on the bases of their bodily disability, but we should encourage each other and treat others equally.
What do you think will be your biggest achievement?
I think that if I can create an environment where people have faith in me/us that we can do beyond what people think that we can do, and also if I can change the attitude of the people to be more accommodative and sensitive towards disabilities/persons with disabilities. This will be my biggest achievement.
Tell us a bit about the recent project you are working on, on Youtube
This is an initiative to encourage persons with Visual impairment to use screen readers efficiently and research using legal databases.
There are few other persons coming up with computer courses for the Visually challenged persons in the area of law.
Jury's Out 